This ground recovers our presence
with leaves and weeds, most all
of our mistakes erode with flowers,
explode with colors leaving seed
as accomplishment sags like ridgelines
of old barns and brittle wire between
broken posts as we sink satisfied
into the soil rich with the work
of hands. Calloused hands, hands
a horseback that track our thoughts
when we were green and learning
to see and think the hard way.
As we breathe, all the chiseled chins
of the rough and gruff retreat
to live as monuments in rock piles
with the honesty of rattlesnakes—
an immortality stirred into the earth
that can’t be purchased, but is always
upon always like the layers of dirt
our future depends, rooted within.
drycrikjournal 