Progress

They had trained since childhood
in games, sandcastles,
toy towers
the teambuilding to
make walls of themselves
netted together, these rocks
packed densely, to forestall,
the last peacekeepers,
guards without gates.

The experts said it was
coming, without pity, swallowing
whole, progress for the one,
the incorporation of all others,
approaching, testing the cracks,
the holes, determined to
fill "vacant" spaces,
the mountain, would ruin
us.

and then came the day
when they pulverized
us to shreds,
a thousand of us
merged with a thousand
of them,
and the cement mixers
said we served the
greater good
in their desperate attempt
to contain the spread.

but it wasn't long till the
latest measure couldnt
hold them back,
so the bombardiers were
called to cull
and the hardest
straightest edges of us (and them)
and the veins and arteries
deeply hidden,
and the humming vibrations,
 the songs we sang,
the soft and smooth curves
of us became so bomb ridden
until nothing but
dust was left of
them and us,
and the experts sat
back and proclaimed
it progress,
and named us heroes for our sacrifice
and said the blood would one day
run clear again, all the way to the sea.