You stepped across the moss laced upon
the foothills, cradled by shadows of
shallow river water. Barren are the embers
of fire smoldering in your somber eyes.
I've watched you trace the sheltered moonlight
with knuckles of lead-stained hands, bronze key in
your pocket glinting amber in the morning sun.
Your coattails catching the light above that sea of stars,
breath stolen from the sudden wind. The dewdrops
echo your heartbeat, like the wildfire breaching your
lungs and that harrowing tongue from settling dust.
The whispers from songbirds turn into
a crowd of bustling crows in the evening.
There's a forlorn gale in a barren field, igniting
into gold and sharpening the brass on your skin.
Carved into your bones like the stars amidst
twilight hours, a canary in the cage of your
breath— withheld in the salt-air from those
splintered eyes, reflecting troubled waters.
Birds in the mountain call out to you,
speckled in stardust and snow underfoot
as you bury your lies beneath the rock.
You don't face any truth in the fractured light of
the sea, nor do you allow yourself to be pulled under
those waves, in spite of that shipwrecked earth
shattering bones and melting your lungs into clay.
Breaching the woodland, soft gaze of a fawn and
voice of an anchor, you tether yourself to the
rising dawn and the elements of the forest.
You're a wandering star, a chain-broken dove,
a traveling poet, and the alchemist of your life.