On the Image

The mechanisms you don't hear
click away.
Those corrugated instruments
click away.

Behind the walls, yes,
and under the ground,
communicating with
broad, vague gestures—

I am that which churns
the gears, my labor
roiling those same sensations
the body conjured while animate.

Shadows in an underground cathedral,
plotting their way through a heavy, industrial air,
move fainter than my lumbering form which breaks the light;
they're tired, having traveled so far to the wall.

I, otherwise, do not know exhaustion,
as I paint portraits, weave tapestries, ferment concoctions,
each correlated to a story above, each, in turn, fed to that metal maw
which harbors flames within and manifests every reality it first must eat.

The smoke from these flames barrels through an intricate exhaust—
not simply away from my home below, but towards yours above—
to be made spires for grand towers, only afterward lost
in a skyline filled with many other such monuments.

The smoke from these flames then settles down onto the trees
and is breathed in through the leaves
and is absorbed by the roots
and becomes alive.

When the breeze then passes through,
they dance almost like all trees do, but not quite.
Their choreography betrays intent as they tell a story
whose ending becomes your own.

They bend, bow, and sway
to an old rhythm—
absentmindedly tucked away
in the perimeter of your life.