All right, here it is, the moment none of you have been waiting for: a Dana Hunter original that didn’t come from an NP writing assignment.

This poor piece has been ripped from its context as part of a poetry war. But I like to flatter myself by thinking it stands fairly well on its own. Well, aside from the whole hooves thing, which is what happens when you’re writing a poem from the point of view of a character with hooves rather than tootsies.

Nothing lasts, eternal
Unchanged
Yesterday long past
Someone cooled their hooves in the mud of a stream
Where today you carve a line
Which holds greater worth:
That moment of coolness
Those lasting words?
I know what each of you would say

Nothing lasts

Things become separate
That side of the stream or this
This elevation or that
Mountains rise, plains fall
And it is often forgotten
That this mountain was a plain once
That this plain washed down from a peak

Things separate
Not really separate

Need for divisions
Divides us
Without boundaries we would be no different

We need divisions
Remember the places between