Jumbo Mountain Speaks

Jumbo Mountain Speaks

come rest your weariness
here on these hard rocks
with a stiff wind
that will buffet your body
proving the heart
entombed in your aching chest
still beats

face west
toward the long white wall of peaks
back to the cities
the fires the glass
those are fights for another hour

feel your hardness
drain into the rocks beneath your palms
your porous bones no match
for their fixed crystals
you were not meant for this
a soft bleeding body
that weeps water, not ice

just sit and be
while the wind works its way into you
until your rage flickers out
and there’s a new space
between your ribs

I know what it’s like
to feel your heart mined out
set upon by pickaxes
swarmed by the rapacious
proving up on false claims
of their right to strip the world
of whatever life they like

and I know
how to lie still
every night
and stare unblinking
into quiet stillness
until my shoulders ease

it takes a long time
for the ore to lose its currency
the forest to gain a voice
and the scars to grow over
but you can see
all the little aspen now
their young leaves
fizzing with joy
reminding you
that evil subsides
when value systems
shift