Monday, August 24, 2015

for those who go ahead
we enter into night
before the sun has yet 
formed wings to rise
carrying on our backs
a skin so thin
we save ourselves from elements
only through our scars

and keep from freezing
through the dark
by cultivating our own embers
until we learn to make them burn
and when the wildfires 
come sweeping from a far but swift 
it is our own sparks we use to turn
all that stands around us
to ashes on the ground
the cherished into charred
and barren lands 
of bones stripped bare
with nothing for the wild 
and hungry fires
to dare visit to consume 
and in the camouflage we hide
safe from being burned

then with the ashes 
of long extinguished fires
left clogging up the pathways 
to where we once perceived
all that was beautiful in this world
we have felt the taste of thirst
so deep inside our throats
that we've acquired the sense
to catch the scent of water 
from in our dreams

for those who go ahead 
we are known 
by our suffering and survival
as much as our endurance 
and our will to shine
broken and tested 
and dropped to our knees
earning every lesson 
with the greatest sacrifice 
of tributes paid in heart and blood
and watered with our tears
in the sacred alchemy that earns 
the knowledge it takes 
to live here in this place 
as is our way
to share it 
with those who follow next

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