This work was published in the Fall 2012 issue of The Lost Country. You may purchase a copy of this issue from us or, if you prefer, from Amazon.
(This is one of my earliest poems, about natural preservation, and the Romantic, Tolkienian rejection of industrial revolution at the expense of the beautiful Created World. It is also a poem about the exploitation of people as well as the natural world, and how this path leads to Hell.
This work was once described to me by a writer I no longer respect (for very different, personal reasons) as a “hippie environmentalist poem.” Should you choose to see it that way, I for one can’t stop you. I’m only the author, after all.)
“SEEK NOT THE RICHES” by Tyler Morrison
Seek not the riches under the earth,
Not silver, gold, nor black gold, oil.
For there is found a wealth of sorrow;
Of joy you’ll find a beggar’s dearth.
Yet if ye must, then go at once,
And sooner return to moats of dust.
Work. Labor. Toil.
Break the rock and stab the dirt,
Pierce and bleed the virgin soil.
Blast the mountains, burn the woods,
And drink whole oceans dry.
Contrive a way to leach the air
And steal at last the open sky.
Oh, Man is bent o’er the world he bends.
He warps a thing to match his thought,
Corkscrews form to fit his ends.
And Nature, like arthritic hands,
Will twist to strange, contorted shapes
‘Til straight be crooked, crooked straight,
Hatred love, and love be hate.
Yet all the while the drudges trudge on,
Trod-on, wretched. Seeking spoils,
Fetching nothings, they pour out sweat
And dredge up dregs, wasting
Time and hope, their blood and breath.
Oh, Heaven weeps, oh!
Heaven weeps at the Second Death.
Read More from the Author
Tyler Morrison , in 2012, became the last graduate of the College of Saint Thomas More. In addition to his poetry, he is currently writing his first novel and play. More from this author.
