In A Madman's Act Poem by James Whitworth

This scissor’d century,
Ribboned and strewn between the wars
Where I was born, wrung from ancience’ youth
To crawl fist-first along the paralleled
Instant of my mortal toil:
An accidental hero -
I lassoed the thief that stole the sun -

Who walks with clouded steps
Along the path of wind between the ends
Of time to find the hour of our inception;
Meteoric and monumental moment
When prospered faith, spring prevailed.
The famine from creation’s fruit
Died its eunuch death.

The oceans of my birth,
Crystal-crested by the eternal eye
Of Dawn’s omnipotent consecration;
The flooding force of her burning pupil
That in a madman’s act I held,
Then felled the tree that gave me shade –
A half-truth; a whole lie.