The Architects

I know you as well hear the refrain

of maple limbs stretched beyond resolve,

in an old forest with bonfires in its lungs—

a madrigal cracking of branch and bone,

where we waded time savagely,

filled with music at solstice, and at equinox

listening for a remnant of past footsteps

when we used to roam delicious and wild.

 

We soaked in sunlight before wisdom,

summoning memory of elk, their majestic crowns,

calling fountains of forest song

as we made wine amid a reckoning of eyes.

The rock gardens cut our skin, bled our bodies

into offerings full of flowers, hidden desires,

before a denouement of hands gripping steel

forged in our quiet moments.

 

Remember that woodland builder,

a terrestrial architect, deliberate in his ways,

an understudy of the river, but mute of the sky.

He kept our faces moving till twilight;

you burned the black roses,

while I tasted honey between rises,

lost in constellations and elations, searching

for sentients of the bright.

 

We forgot our destination was somewhere else,

far beyond borders where we laid,

as season shifts blended dreamscapes with salt

and smoke rising from winter fire to sparkled seas;

and when our legs gave to the day’s burn,

we could only melt solemnly in the night—

two celestial architects,

sketching stars and new worlds as we slept.