Accident

(they) were playing
(they were) not for what will
   be
(they were shattered)
they were red blood
they were before the (stop)
(they were) could not be were they
   to slow down
(they) were broken into living
   pieces
they were (not to) make it out
   alive
(they) were to be spun from the
   wheel
they were to be (removed)
   forever
they were to be not even
   (remembered)
the were to be not even
   (mourned)
they crossed back as ever
   into grinding machine
(they were torn apart)
   by flattening engines
they were never to (be)
   again
(they were a mere moment
   from death's crushing weight)
they were never to grasp
   that (feeling)
they were made meaningless
   by time's threads

Is this today or yesterday, Without a Liberal education I can't tell...

They came from privileged space,

descending upon the uncivilized 

to teach them the honor to be found

in free labor, to a people 

adverse to work,

to impart on them self-reliance 

and prudence, of which it was thought 

their people had none,

From the spheres of Oberlin

their hair tied back,

their finger nails clean, they found

a presence unwanted,

a feeling they graciously ignored

for the betterment of their pupils,

The land sacked, the houses burnt,

the order of labor and life and thought and society

up in the air air air,

And they carried their education like their enemies 

had once carried the whip and the cane and the gun,

In the fields they couldn't find humility

and the cotton weevil had been out of work

for too long to offer much help,  

So when they returned to the mothership

codenamed Oberlin, 

they spoke the same gospel of the defeated,

the landed and the wretched,

about a people who wouldn't be ruled (for their own good)

who fought honorably against oppression (but were impudent)

struggled to feed their families (but lounged lazily)

and built their own schools (but refused to read and write)