Hrafnagaldr

Wind hot as sunlight on your cracked lips:

its song lives inside you

you move as it moves

this red dust too restless;

it will not abide forever

ground beneath our feet

you are still here

the girl with eyes like a crow, intelligence glinting

her head cocks to the side

that mouth was made to slice flesh from bone

you have seen her face in mine

she devours your words—

you are still here

so many years carrying poems of the dead

you wake with nothing left on your lips but that which will never die

we live in the space between one song and another

and the echoes we carry will consume this husk utterly

rise early

I find you shivering, etched against pale light

you search the horizon, the flights of birds; the nightmare falls forgotten

you are still here

these stolen moments, forgetting duty

we live within such frailty

this cup runneth over

smoke rises, a farmer burning leaves

behold yourself in its face

even stones must perish

your hand in mine

you are still here

in your glance

a thousand graceless poems