To Lift

it is a coarse sound

digging through layers of ash

to piece together things from before

once fire, the earth took it utterly

razed empires sink into stone

when we were younger

we did this to the sky

our fingers drew a fine string

crosses and spots among lights

still new to us

sitting on the floor of caves

we were guarding ourselves

from the passage of time

distant lights remain familiar as fire

and still we follow them coursing with

innate impulse to impale then cast a blanket

one still to be draped over the greening

of latent twigs churning in our own lungs

new buds swelling with a want to be

flooded and flushed into being

like the sparks of our cooking fires

as they collapse

the feet a weak compass

tripping over roots to high woods

we imagined we’d waited long enough

the peaks emerged through

eons of rushing and light pollution

told in pieces as trees melted to grass

back to stone

but the wind followed,

the one which

always carries clouds off the hills

as our youth leaves us

over the oceans mimicking stars

slowly buckling the knees

of bedrock, taking the middle unspoken

grain by grain

it’s close to the side of that sound

empires pulled into the spinning murk

of night sky