The light of the sun is gray

on these ruddy brown hills.

I have seen the statues fall,

I have seen them be replaced

by faint projections.

I have seen stone turned to jelly

and men become steel.

I have seen steel become soup

and nations netted hives

besieged by hyenas.

I have seen the lion shed his hair

and the shadows become maps,

rice paper ceilings

for the dwellers of caves

in the earth.

I have seen through planetariums

to the real outside.

Stars go pale with time

the distance rides in

veins of travel

red with battered clay

and living dust.

I retract my symbols

pull my desperate blade from the soil.

This tent of skin

becomes translucent suggestion.

I build a porch beneath my bones

let the forces go roving home.

Rivers on wayward courses

the delinquents of a dying dawn.