Stone's Source, Part #II /48
I do not choose to glorify
the cadences of the mind
which mirror the marching of boots
on cold pavement, or the songs
which cross borders at night,
transporting fear.
I do not choose to glorify
the tricks of the mind which
leave the body in uncompromising situations
across a landscape as bare as
Golgotha, behind bars of conscience
or steel, or littered across
a landscape of fear.
I do not choose to glorify
the colors which draw us, all of us,
in our efforts to win
or to control,
or to steal, as the thief
steals in us, away before
dawn the imagination
into bright shadows where
we are strangers.
I do not choose to glorify
that which I understand years later,
as age creeps through the crevice
of pain, as the landscape changes
because of our toil, as the
response of earth to ugliness
and destruction, and occasionally
a beautiful sunset. I sit there
now, but the view is blocked again,
the hour is late, and the sounds
of a falling sun only remind me
that I am here alone.
I do not choose to glorify
that which is not mine, as if belonging
could hold it, or ropes could tie it
or time could contain it, or soil
bury it, or the wind whisper it
through trees, as other secrets will
and other secrets won't.
I do not choose to glorify
the day which went through here with
such a fat lip, with such a promising
smile, with such a blank stare. I tried
to glorify them once, but they
snapped at me, wild dogs that they are
and I swore not to commit again the mistake
of not learning the first time.
I do not choose to glorify
what man builds if it has doors, if it has
no meaning but is simply the result of
plans, if it is not part of a dream,
one man's dream,
there in a place which can not be replaced
by any other, for the sake of it,
for the power of it, for the
glory of it.
I do not choose to glorify
what has not been spoken between
two persons, in a quiet way, under
the weight of care, carried with
the height of mountains, over
rivers which know no separation
even through time, along a ridge
which is not retraceable, over gray
matter or gray clouds if it is
that simple.
I do not choose to glorify
what can be described
simply
with words
unless those words themselves twine
it in, grow vine like from the flesh,
wrap it in a way about you
the smallest detail which is
forgotten,
which is replaced by experience,
which comes home to roost
like the birds which gather
in twilight,
friends, sharing the details.
I do not choose to glorify
that which is not glorious.
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