This poem is called "They crowd."
It has an epigraph, it's in a few prose poem sections,
and I'm not going to read them all.
The epigraph is from Elias Canetti
who wrote a book called Crowds and Power.
"They crowd."
"There is nothing humans fear more than the touch
of the unknown.
It is only in a crowd that one is free of that fear."
Elias Canetti.
"They assemble to make food, share food, and to dance.
They assemble for work and to work others.
They assemble sun, altar, veil to sacrifice
and to prayer, Endless in their religions of lament.
They assemble to build, to dress, to hoist weapons,
and to march.
They assemble to shore.
They vanquish unbelievers.
They assemble to drape the sick and to heap the newly dead.
They assemble to spectatorship, to devour, interrogate,
and to judge.
They assemble to chant, and in chanting, lose themselves.
They dissemble to believe and then, believe to crave,
and to mourn.
They dissemble to sleep and in sleeping, dream.
They dreaming, die to spirit, and in spirit, rise."