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