Dear Longfellow,

Sweet it was when we were low
time was gentle and it was slow
and under that patriarchal tree
night understood and it did flee
to catch up with the yellow morn
where wind tossed seeds of corn
huddled under the dirty sea
more than enough for you and me.

That was then and this is now
let's take a look at exactly how
the angel of death pulled up our brow
and tossed the moribund modern beast
out of paradise, into the east
into the night and past the day
between the solved and unsolved fray.
Before I'd grown and got
the miserable amount within this plot,
a body a mind a soul a ransom
a price not unusually handsome,
for then it was me the child
dirty, precocious and especially wild.

Here is a case in point
there is no time to spare,
no water to spell anoint
and too much damage to repair.
The river appeals unto the city
runs amok near fear and pity,
while wind uproots the lesser trees
brings old and young onto their knees,
throws bodies into the deepest seas.
I see the storms like trains on track
hauling their load back and back
over my head, past my east
past the chalice of the priest.

Dear Longfellow inside your tomb
the clergy within your temple is shot
the shaitan has laid his eggs in men
and blood is flowing again and again,
this angel of death whom you describe
is working hard within this tribe
aware of plans and ridiculous notions
able to cause unreasonable motions.
Dear Longfellow the mistake is clear
even the shaitan follows with fear
and Dante your dear was entirely mistaken,
in his grave he is bruised and shaken.

Dear Longfellow did you know
about the dispensationalists?
When you were young, just a child
about the forest and oh so wild
without troubles even mild,
under the patriarchal tree of Adam,
alas. Darwin didn't know about genetics
nor Einstein have much regard for poetics.
Dear Longfellow, how could you have known
that with Christ their plan was blown?