They don’t say much, enbearded wisdom-tellers.
Just point at the faraway gray, earnestly,
as if to say, “That’s where Almighty is — don’t you see him?”
While I chisel and nod and sculpt and murmur in
assent.
My hand throbs, as it always does, between the hammer
falls, and I think about what will happen after the sun sets:
The slow walk home amid the sage green, down a valley
humming with streams, to a woven hut that is my home.
She will be there, my forever woman, and the four, my
future-promise children. And there will be a small fire,
as every night, and a bowl of stew, and we will sit together
and eat. Maybe, when the stories come and we remember,
we will laugh until we cry.
The old man stays amid the stone, as every night, and points to
clouds we cannot see. I see him in my mind’s eye, pleading:
“He is there! He is there! Don’t you see him?”
And as our laughter fades, I hug my children —
aching — for tomorrow is never as sure as stone.
