Archival compassion flows from the face of
The Radiating Maypole Queen
Who spins in a kaleidoscopic circle of chants
Her people, in a white-clad array, disappear over the hills
Three Madonnas give birth to farms, fields and houses
Spewing forth the children of the earth
From beneath ample skirts
Then, like the breathing tide, gathering them in again.
Adam, an onion farmer, and Eve, his wife
Follow their faithful donkey through the field
To the tune of a folk fiddle
With the whisper of bird's wings
Around the sound of the earth breathing
The fiddle screeches out a warning
And the uptown men appear
With infinite abandon, they trade Adam and Eve
Their life's works for a television set
Their donkey for dollars
Their farm for a tomblike rest home
Cows in a nearby field look on mournfully
The earth sighs. While no one is watching
The May mother is traded for a
Silver-studded new model state-of-the-art
Gleaming missile launcher
With awesome hightech specs
. . .
The sky darkens
And the next act finds the field strewn
With broken promises and mankind's hopes gone awry
The uptown men scramble to hold back the missile
But their efforts are programmed to fall
There is a moment of shocked silence
Slowly the earth recedes
Adam and Eve crumble
The cows slowly tumble
Even the uptown men pay the price
The earth opens and over the hills
Rides a green dragon demon
Leaving charred turds of people
Curled into mournful lumps
Four horsemen charge out
Red, black, white, and bare boned
While the spirit of the dead wanders among the heaps
sprinkling purifying powders
The horsemen burst with flames
A wounded figure stumbles through the wreckage
The flames burn higher
When all has turned to ash
Screaming white birds float over the remains
In the distance, an ark


In honor of Peter Schumann's
Bread and Puppet "Our Domestic Resurrection Circus
Glover, Vermont
August 15 and 16,1981