Shattered ice on water, redwoods drinking carbon
and fog. They were never yours. The evenings
were never yours. The river’s opal stones.
Rain thrown against the current as cities rose
into the red dark. Their arches and grids belong
to no one. But the faces denied entrance are yours,
the weak ones are yours, lamentations and anthems
streaking through your veins, dark with sleet and thaw.
Every effort, every desire that began in you
must change course, the snowflakes blowing for hours,
gray but still burning. You touch hidden stars
as you turn the pages of a book that cannot end.
A sense of silence and light places itself in your hands.