The Steps

This is my first officially published poem, included in Ganymede Unfinished.

THE STEPS

Walking over my fields, like palace rugs,
never stopping to try their taste,
I scurry before the ancient temple steps.
No song to sing, only whispers in time,
make real the clamoring of children's hearts.
Under willow leaves we dare to dream
of countries without shade,
of seas adrift in hurricane tide
marching onward into swirling parade.
The horizon hanging in silent prayer
opens the gates too bent to hold the food,
and all at once I disappear into cloudy noons
never quite so still.
Before I breathe the essence of silk,
a hand waves to the boy who is gone.
The steps are now all that is left
in this land of fairy games and battlefields.
Once atop the hill, the oceans unfold
sweet flower scent in autumn's gaze,
while the river folk line up and share
on banks as dry as a desert bone.
But the winds blow me to a lonely shore,
where swallows weep under falling stars.
The waves wash with withered rain
till my steps have lost all form,
and the trailing tears of all my years
wrap me in blankets of twisting gears.
They chew me up till none is left but
the aching of my soul, and just like before
my raging fire is reduced
to but a coal.