Fire Walk On Me

author’s note:

When I consider the continuum of history...

...I can look at what’s happening today and still be concerned, but not quite as upset.

[The above photo is of an extinct volcano crater in Oahu, Hawaii--an old terror that is now lush green.]


OLD EARTH

How I love those
cracked and verdant walls,
those ancient bricks built
with red blood, mortared
with white ash.

How I love that everything
comes to an end and yet
endures and what endures
is the best extravagance.

How I love to walk
on the scoured beaten earth,
the red purple earth, the fissured earth.
How I love to luxuriate
in the once indomitable volcano
now filled
with lush green,
now filled
with goats
eating leisurely
in their white beards.

How I love the idea
that one day I’ll add
my own blood
to the red brick.
Add my own ground bones
to the white mortar.

I actually love how
our past failures
become comical relief tales
of men and their fears and fleas
and greed.  I do hope
to one day be
the tale
of a foolish old man
banging his head on a banjo drum.

When I am dead,
please--come,
walk on me.

© 2009, Michael R. Patton

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