WEALTHY AT LAST

First the radios
Brought in crackling sounds
From the edges of the world.
A few stray notes mixed in like ants saying prayers,
Then real songs squawked all night from red paper birds
That kited across the old blue sheets of sky.

The whales in the sea had sung before,
We'd had their tunes on vinyl, singing with Judy Collins
But now they came right up to the seawall,
With a fresh attitude, and roaring like zoo lions,
Demanding lunch, some with faces like Alfred Hitchcock.
The children said they'd first heard them in ponds
Out past the outskirts of town.

Then far away the roads in mountain passes began to crowd up
With animals that had fallen out of dreams.
Our grandfathers had painted them on the walls of caves,
Celebrated them, learned to talk by singing about them.
And somehow they had kept breathing all this time.

Now suddenly they're here, they're coming down the ramps.
Their leaders carry signs that explain their policies.

And we too have been released.
All the books made a little squeak and went blank
Well, the animals are finally back in town!
And wealthy at last, we take to the roads,
Arriving at any destination,
Dressed in new robes,
Still strangers but welcome at last to each other
In the rainstorm broken by sun.