Forgotten words of the violent landscape

The fields and hills are strewn with the fallen
axioms; they tumble the waters and poison the fish.
Eventually the sun herself may be blotted
but for now the words merely lie
in thorny piles, competing
with the scrub-thicket.

Once, these words were carried
on the backs of men, cumbrous
& heavy
with good reason, they branded flesh
and man could carry few.
They held them firmly on the straight path.

Now, learned men,
men of letters,
navigate the heaps of serif-tangles--

through nettle-points
freeing crimson regret--
the men shrug, move onward;
search for water, for gold--
then silver.

They have replaced our burdened men
of words.