Reunion

After a time the road hides behind errant thoughts
an oasis of purpose beyond the skyline
just past the formless landscape in which I am caught
anxious sand etching the mind where they are confined
somewhere a destination waits for my return
decades away, or two hundred twelve miles by the sign.

Though the same vowels and numbers and stories were taught
the language we speak will never again align
casualties to the war of innocence still fought
despite knowing that both sides had long since resigned.
In the ashes of conflict, fragmented, I yearn
to take all those hardships and render them benign.

A Flag Flipped at Half Mast

Roughly hewn bold shoulders pierce clouds
hearing through the soft cotton of the sky
in an eternal attempt to deny
the cost which time at length enshrouds
a history of chaos caught in contortions
the passing days a gentle rain in the ocean

Where the transient will see might
the ageless will recall violent trauma
millions of years in tectonic drama
to break the skin with vicious spite
resigned to the cosmos. Never to move again
until at last these same forces push them to their end.

They quake with anticipation
an unbearable anxiety
that brings them within reach of piety
at the expense of damnation
the earth a parchment on which will be writ its dirge
should the progenitor finally emerge

By the time that day came to pass
the monster spoke with fire now set free,
“I give to the world what it took from me,”
buried it in molten and ash
then, at last, returned to the earth from which it came
never knowing it had itself to blame.

Elephants

The broad surface – a stretched canvas of years
sun beaten – weathered and worn
a map of dead dreams and old fears
scars like canyons and crags
unseen forces clawing at the past
with grotesque greedy spears
to take a future neither would ever know
exchange it for a few coins
blood soaked soil
and silent tears
a story told
but unfinished
an ending like heat waves on the horizon
the time since a prolonged epilogue
a corpse that just
endears