Wrought
Shake what you will,
the hands exert their touch.
Are any birds unnamed,
untamed, left to peck and spill?
Hills dictate hidden
valleys, human sorrow
stored there in earth,
layer and core.
Reaching into a fire
with tongs to extract iron
could demonstrate
how to shape the unyielding,
the anvil greased up
to withstand such thrashes,
the unshaped metal
massive and terrible.
There's a transfer point
where energy's exchanged
but it's invisible,
and we're prone to trespass it
like those salamanders,
red-backed, marbled, spotted
that come out a night
to burrow into logs
and feed on leaf litter.
Touch fires the need
for touch. I ask to be handled gently
and mirror my request
upon others. But what do I do
when the will is iron?
Inherent the method
for bonding kindness to cruelty
(the Maillart Bridges)
and traversing the steep ravine?
Euclidean blushes with poise and charm,
sun, moon, stars,
torches and chandeliers,
hang suspended
no matter in whose two hands
the morning fog is shaped,
—wind sweeping your hair across your face,
my hand brushing it back.
