Close to this sleeping root, in its flesh of ancient earth
Close to this sleeping root, in its flesh of ancient earth,
something struggles silently to become light again, to be born anew from shadow.
And we remain, with our thoughts hanging like a rope torn from the sky,
wondering whether to overlook its gentleness, sweet and annihilating.
A tumbling of black waters follows, over the forehead of my memory,
a shaken clarity, like a lightning bolt that lies, falsifies, and forgets.
Then I barely recognize the electric grace of the men from long ago,
whom I had seen carrying their rusted shirts through the swamp that scorched them,
planting themselves in the ground with arms outstretched like a cross, a condor on each shoulder,
men who wanted to die beautifully, shattering their bones like ancient bells,
their eyes extinguished like burnt amber, silent as icons forgotten by prayer —
and I feel them smoldering within me, like a root that refuses to sleep.
And I walk out into this magical, phosphorescent rain, mystical and cold,
to untie the rope that binds me across centuries and dreams,
to roll myself back into the root from which all that I am has struggled to become again.
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