Report From X-Star 10 Poem by Laurence Overmire

It was a strange planet
We landed on
A beautiful planet, lush and green
With riches beyond compare.

Beings of all size and form
Inhabited magical terrain:
Open sky and waterfall
Deep jungle and arid plain.

But even though their eyes
Deep-set in rather large heads
Appeared to be open
In sad, unfortunate fact, none could see.

In blind trance, they set about
Destroying, using
All they had been given
Till what had been beautiful once became
Irrevocably ugly.

Even so, incredible as it may seem
They could not see the ugliness either
Instead building great monuments
In praise of, what they deemed
An extraordinary conquest of
Dirt and stone.


(Previously published in Poetry Junction, Apr.2003)