I Before the firs learned the language of wind Before the granite shouldered the sky We were not even rumor Not even dust The earth did not wait II We kindle our brief geometries Of bone, of iron, of prayer Raise angles against the horizon Name the void And call it ours The mountain does not answer III Under glacial patience Our cities crack like thin ice Bridges sink into moss Scriptures soften into soil Time does not hurry It erases IV We speak of legacy As if stone could love us As if rivers would rehearse our names In their dark rehearsals Water remembers nothing V Cathedrals bow to frost Empires collapse without witness The forest threads its roots Through marble ribs There is no tragedy Only replacement VI The sun burns with indifferent hunger A distant furnace Unconcerned with the small arithmetic Of our pulse Light devours evenly VII We flare Brief phosphorus in snow A spark misreading itself as dawn Then ash Then sediment Then pressure No monument survives its weather Outro Wind across stone Stone beneath ice Ice beneath time
