The Things We Rise From

In the morning there is silence. 

That’s how you know it’s morning, because 

you can hear the stillness. Why do you think the 

trees grow as they do, 

immutable as memories. Do you

even know? We are told 

we return to ash, but I don’t believe that’s true. 

Made in blood and flesh; our first thought was red. 

We are creatures 

of flesh 

too, we have bones 

            that 

                          beat

   and 

              hearts 

                       that 

       break—

or 

something like that. 

All this pulsing redness, all this fire; how 

dare you suggest it can be reduced to 

something as irresolute as ash, which,

like dust in summer, is caught up and blown 

on the wind and scattered here

and here 

              and here. 

  here 

                              her  e

       h 

                       e

  r

              e

   . 

I have been whole and intact since the very 

beginning, and now you want to siphon off 

pencil shavings of me. You want to 

boil my insides. Leave black marks 

in all that red. 

Don’t 

resent your bones for breaking; 

they were made to. I’m sorry you can’t 

pull them off like shoes and leave them by the door. 

They’re scuffed and they rub, I know. 

I know, I know. You’re tired of carrying them, 

I know that too. 

Tell me, have you ever listened to the whisperings 

of the wind? It has many secrets. My favourite is 

this: it is also tired of 

carrying things. You. Me. All that dust. 

The ash.