Stone Lions

Eyeless, you gaze on your domain.

Eternal, you regard the rising sun.

Standing at your gate, I see you whole.

You define the trees, the rock, the mesa,

enspiriting the land to its circumference.

Hunters bring you gifts to pay their debts.

Others, sounding alien voices,

bring you bribes to win your soul.

Priests tend you with their songs and drugless dreams

and with their hands that sift the scattered gifts,

welcome from unwelcome.

You are present in my spirit's land;

I, an interruption of your dream.

I stand before you silent, looked beyond,

my gifts: myself, the child I love.

Accept our presences as gifts.

Accept this silence as respect.

Accept this lingering and my still regard,

Accept this nothing giving all.

Around are not my trees, my stones.

Your wall enbounds my limit, not your own.

I possess nothing here; your demense

the space I live within, my home,

not possessed but occupied.

You define the land. Centered on your weight,

The land contains you and endures my passage.

Anchor of my gyre, you do not call me back but wait,

eternal,

and for spirit's hunger I return,

crossing the dry ground,

drinking the clear light

and water I carry,

tasting the tang of pine

and food I carry,

leaving my track in the dun soil,

leaving nothing.

Eyes, mouth, and nose dehydrate;

Body effervesces into air and gone.

The pain of forced muscle is an offering,

The ache of failing knee, an offering,

The stresses of the march,

The burn of skin and lung, offerings,

small payment for the moment here,

for definition,

for rebirth.