Elegy to Colorado Springs

You *are just a bit of a fraud, though-- All quiet and pastoral Serenity, small-town girl, Sleepy and pure--sure--all while you sit In the lap of a half-million others! Yes, my city--and yours--and theirs-- The would-be concourse of our people, Great Free-City by the mountain, America's Mountain, they say-- But then, there is no longer Any such thing as America. So what of its mountain? It belongs only to itself, as perhaps It always did. What then should I call you, O high-plains pretender? Will you turn Lonesome-dove at last, embrace the deep Quiet of the prairie, set off on foot Into amber waves of grain, and be heard No more? Will you dispel these souls Who accost you, glomming on night and day, "Fastest-growing city in America" Or some such prideful Midwit tripe? But already I told you: There is no longer an America. What good then, to be the fastest-growing part Of a dead dream? And even if I could descry some selfless quietude In your teeming crown, If I could spot some link within you To what you were, and we were, Some embryo of a new dimension In which we could hide, then live, then fight again, Still I think you would be quite *en prise* To the forces that once made you. For there are tunnels in the mountains, tunnels in your soul, They fill your bosom with idylls of control and raw surveillance, You are like some mold-growth now That subsists over the deep shining machine. (Deadly quiet, the machine--below the mountain In deepest night it purrs, inaudibly, In infrasound and microwaves--) No, that machine that has you in its tongs Is the real masterwork now. And I mean, be reasonable: You cannot really believe These forces could or would stop To *remember, much less bow down To your former beauty? Yes, there are men, Many men, armies full of them, Air-squadrons dot your physiognomy, Academies, bases, the whole ballistic Nuclear, droning, whiz-bang tedium-- But what once was a badge of loyalty Now seems too much like acne Or worse, syphilis-sores. You had your time in beauty, enjoy a bit still, But too much weighs against you now In the balance of modern forces. Your charm Chafes like the mincing walk Of a late-middle-aged Southern belle, with too much surgery. Your suitors? Ah, dear Scarlett-- they will not come to your aid, They will not join up To make of you the fortress That your posterity deserves. Of course, for my part, I would see you as the White City once more, Minas Tirith, Standing proudly at the gates of the mountains, Great banners bellying, trumpets, drums, All the martial glories! A final fusillade endured, and then the charge-- A million orcs not meet and sufficient To bring you to heel, then on To sweet victory--was this not The storybook you were built for? But that was long ago, in another world Shared only briefly. There were giants In the earth in those days. And now, as I look, I think even the real-life giant, Nikola, had he stayed on By your side--that magic Hungarian Hermaphrodite, who knew so intimately The dances of positive and negative-- Still could not, for all his effort, Have summoned wizardry enough To preserve you for your children.