If you mortals could but know
The dreams that I dreamed eons ago
Of flowing lava, magma glow
Sloping down hills of slag in crimson streams.
How I yearned to be born!
To call out, Yawn and bring me forth.
To this hot rock, swept through space
If you will but yield me, I will cloak it
In protection. Transparent my embrace.
Millennia did I wait. It took some time,
But the crust slurried up her ghost
Breathing me forth like a Delphic vapor.
I sinuously wound around each tree,
Thinness replaced by abundant air,
Holding space for jungles stuffed with ferns and palms.
Enormous monsters roared and tangled.
Time and again a volcano might spurt,
Or ice cover the earth. The record will show.
Let the record show. Let the record show.
I continued to breathe.
The sphere still spinning, gently slowing.
Then! The chuffing! The endless grey plumes,
The tiny fires covering the planet.
How it heated, until the particles clung
To my invisible lungs.
Great chasms gaped at the north and the south.
And then, one year. Just before spring tilted back.
It went quiet down there.
Down there! What do I say?
My nose kisses the ground each day,
Yet my myopia went unregistered.
So much did I see: no one saw me.
My lungs cleared. I could breathe once more.
The green below filling my silent heart with joy,
My old friends the plants come back.
Flocks took wing. Even the water cleared,
And reflected me back in it, polishing my mirror.
I covered the surface in an infinite clasp,
Grateful for this memory recaptured, this moment
I swore I’d never return here again.
May the crust’s activity, when it resumes,
Creep slowly, and hold space for me.
