© Steve King 2013
All rights reserved
I walked through the farthest field,
where winds rose and long grass bowed.
It would be too much to assume for myself
a solitary power that would move the winds and grass;
a power to call spirits of earth and sky
out from age-long slumbers.
I say that if there are spirits still, they must wait—
withholding sky-borne charms and earthy nods—
and slumber on, imagining better days
to yield a truer prophet,
a shaman or a seer
to utter, even blind, for them.
It is only the least of breeze,
born of the distant sun,
that stirs long grass,
touching all the things that have no care
for great spirits and ages and airs;
a hovering beat that will not sing
until that day when spirits
must gather for real, or not ever;
when spirits might bring lightning
to invest a new waiting dawn.
No saints nor prophets on the path,
shamans or seers to invoke;
though the winds do seem
to whisper in tongues
upon indifferent ears;
though grasses still bow from afar.
For now, the winds and grass,
and those who merely walk,
are caught up surely in the old slow dance:
restless and unready all at once,
glad for something, if only new days,
moving as those tremors move,
that ripple through the patient spirits’ dreams.
