“Building on a foundation of sand” is an ancient cautionary metaphor that our modern, so-called civilization often seems to run over roughshod. Literally jumping from one unsustainable practice to the next unsustainable practice often seems like a fair characterization of modernity and the ultimately brutal logic of capitalism. This poem resembles the apocryphal saying that the capitalist will sell the rope for their own hanging…
On Sand They Billed
On sand
They billed
Their civilization
Only then realizing
The price of sand
So moving
Their civilization
To less substantial grounds
Sand in merchant eyes
Anchoring their future
As purveyors
Souled out
