he looks in vain for what he's lost:
these fields were opportunity,
but what is taken has its cost
in compromised immunity

and soil under fingernails
that went where fingers shouldn't go:
it is the non-attempt that fails,
as many say, but few still know --

why do we sit or stand upon
such ceremonies as we do,
when all they represent is gone,
and when our lies and lives are through

we reach into the nothingness
we crafted, oh-so-lovingly,
and treated like a sacredness
though made but ill, and slovenly?

still, where we are is where we've come,
and where he is, a product of
the steps he took that brought him from
the beachly paradise of love

to this. though choosing where we go,
we always reap exactly what we sow