In the Next Life, Canto III, stanzas 187-194

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Chapter 2
Noria
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So Ciral came back to the refugees
with some provisions and the joyous news
that to the best of his abilities
he’d take them to a place where they could choose.

A landing he’d constructed in a tree
for practicing his acrobatic skills
was ample sleeping surface for the three
the first night; then they headed for the hills.

The second day they found a house of stone
in which they slept while keeping watch by turns.
’Twas decent shelter, but it stood alone.
With tubes about, they’d have to watch their sterns.

They wanted something similarly built
but in a place that giants would avoid.
The carriers would let him ply his trade,
but humans unannounced might be destroyed.

The city near the mall was built of wood,
and through the years no-one had made repairs.
The few pathetic structures that still stood
had long been deemed unusable as lairs.

Just down the river lay a bigger town
whose outskirts Ciral on his rounds would reach.
Its skyscrapers had mostly fallen down—
a barrier the robots could not breach.

Amid this broken mass they found a church
with granite walls sufficiently tall
that they could build a platform for a perch
on which the trio now could safely sprawl.

Within a week they had themselves a house,
complete with roofing and a swinging door.
Not quite like home, though—no one had a spouse,
nor what they’d known as substitutes therefor.

©2010 Louis A. Merrimac