On my adolescent son's prehistoric ways.





Across Your Ceiling of Stone


You are thirteen, drawing in
On the fissure of our age
Yet remote, layers of strata
Bury us between epochs
In another time

In another time I wore you
Like a vest across my chest
We hunted for backhoes
Digging caverns in the mist
Planting our feet

We would plant our feet
Into the volcano and run away
Covered in magma, to hide
Under the persimmon tree
From the sun

Now, thirteen, where have you
Gone into hiding?  Your eyes
Look far away.  Your ears are plugged
With rhythms I cannot hear
On my drums

On your tongue, another language
Prehistoric thoughts, words
For concepts I am dumb
While what I have mastered
You cannot hear

Son, in your skins, let me sit
Silent around your fire
In the cavern of thirteen
Listening to the sounds
Of hiss

And then, reaching up
To the concave earth
Let us draw with sticks
Our charcoal thoughts
Across your ceiling of stone

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