Stairs

Each block of stone is chosen and cut from the earth,

Dressed and placed by hands bruised and aching,

Built into a cascading wall of rocks to make

A fall whose proportion fits the measured tread

Of all who pass and repass:

A mountain of graded crystal carried to form

Infinite potentials, energies locked with mortar

Giving our legs the power of flight.

I thought that I would speak to each stone,

Extract from its impassive face the truths

Grown through tectonic assault and skeletal collapse;

Offer my own energies in a trade,

Rub off a little skin in an erosion of all sense:

Donate breath, transfer heat, spend time upon.

In descent life is spent, born high then washed

Into the ocean like a grain of sand.