Opening

Quiet now, these winds of kings,
awed into a different silence,
stony waiting, every day a year,
every year a scar, knives exhausted
from their cutting industry, maybe,
unbidden by every orphaned prayer
for a return to kindness, some-
thing owed more than promised,
coming at last, freezing this draft
of the soul, a character in progress,
heart opening to the possibility
of past selves and a future self
meeting, at last, the confluence
place where all conversations,
all living rivers meet, to bargain
for passage if not for accord, not
love, not empathy, not even trust,
instead to find simple, renewed
desire, the seedling’s chance, a
wingbeat’s lofty mystery, and begin

(From my notebook.)

photo credits
(where not otherwise credited)

“Troubled road” / photograph by Samantha Ram on Unsplash.com