In That Great Gettin'-Up Morning

They came in caravans, like mushy peas

Lined up on a table, stuff you wouldn't eat,
No, not for anything, not even if
You had to sit there till your plate was clean--
It was, but moving peas onto the wood
Surface, which doubled back globular green,
Didn't much count--and you couldn't go out,
So there you sat, and they came on in files
And filled the fields in rows, one after one,
As if for concert parking; but the songs,
Sweetest when never heard, made dead birds fly
And unseen eagles fall out of the clouds
Onto the roofs of Minis. As they sang,
The caravans, of John Brown's Body Wash
And Vengeance is A-Coming Like a Go-Go,
The smell of sacrifice, the trampled dust,
The blue smoke of electrics ill installed,
Rose over hills where harts skipped and the roe
Carried their heads like trophy wives and posed,
The ungulate mission. Psalms of praise abound.