Edward Wright Haile

A World Without People

… a world of birds and ponds,
this world
of camphor-scented glades, a new one
in morning flames beyond each one
my soul comes and inquires within,

one with showers of light spotting the sea’s nameless floors,
nameless glades, full of chatter,
colored roots, great cats loping in retreat,
big-eyed dogs licking and shameless,

and never the solitaire hand of money-making,
the forcing plow before the money-shire,
the clink of scheming, the cuss of sweat,

but a world that washes, cools, christens with scent,
a world of life farmed with the...