bones of our progeny

The dewy predawn limbs rattled and complained, scratching at the cheerless sky
Anxious were the titles they made under orange glow of eminent sunrise
Nervously scribbled on the backs of children, carved with crude knives
Ownership laid claim over the living property in the hardening morning light, the branding

Lips would crack, and skin would wither in shadows of wings circling overhead
Ripe apprehensions driven mad with calculating fingers; send them out
The smallest relinquished at last to the damned and thrust out into the desert
The young ones, urged with half-truths, went willingly like kittens to milk

Afeared of light, the protectorate ebbed into dim deeps, awaiting result of the fell experiment
Given over to fate and element the little ones huddled in groups or scattered alone
No guidance and shouldering foreign burdens they wept and cowered, begging
Yet, they were left to drown in the dust of evermore, bait for the proverbial, the literal

No word, dark came, nothing could be seen or heard from barometer of children
Years on, bones pricked up through broken beds in grossly increasing number
No memory, nothing bettered, nothing new, the protectors, the leaders, the all knowing
Replacements were birthed into boxes, raised like lambs until the day of their use

No one spoke to the young, and they never spoke, they simply ate, slept, shit and cried
They yearned for attention, prying at the bars of their cages, bleeding with the effort
Then, one by one they were harvested from their kennels and delivered onto the anvil
The protectors awaited change, but nothing changed; what changes without doing?

New quarry for old failure, yearlings innocent of the crimes of their forebears
Perpetuated on the crust of the dead, their kin, their siblings, their sisters and brothers
Lessons never passed on, nothing learned yet from the grand hypothesis
Thrust out are the babes empty eyed; there is no hope for the progeny of best intentions