I didn’t come into the world
With a shower of pumice and a head full of hair
To sit idly in my tracks waiting for
Trains to come through. The crystalline air,
choking and grey, said “I’m here, a child of the earth,
but not bound to subtlety.”
My mission, from the start, has been
To pull out by the roots what had laid dormant
To examine the dust of millenia with my microscope eye and exclaim,
“This is the world as we’ve known it
And yet rarely seen. This is the plasma of our barbaric blood,
The sigil of the escape we thought we made
Only to realize we’d brought it all when we
Stopped running and quieted our breath.”
Enemies stood against me, even the sky and the crashing sea
Because no one can stand alone;
They shook the foundations, they rattled their stations,
And still I stayed with my glassy eye and cold
Bones. They couldn’t sway
What a resolute heart had created.
They couldn’t say a word –
On my right side stood truth, whom they knew
But refused to speak to.
Hand in hand, we walked up that crumbling slope,
Scraping talus from between our toes,
Laid our incantations on the ashy breeze
And with one difficult breath became a whole being
That ran from the turgid volcano
Home.
—
written 09.18.19
Find more of Eden’s work at Moth Traces.
