the too-long dawn

As the millennium grinds to an opening, 
one of so many along the way, we sting 
and smart so much harder and wiser 
and sweat at the task we've been offering.
Before we can knuckle and hunker down,
reckon the score and decide not now
but soon just which of the jejune
and vacuous pule that got us here,
which planks of the boat we all rowed in 
should stay, which we should keep, perchance 
to rule, and which we should blast as not ok
- there's a bigger decision bestride us now. 
We all have a sense of it in the ribs. We all 
feel the need to go back to school, kill 
the teacher and ask whose class this is.