by Madison Root
I want to be a wall.
I want to be 4 million year old sandstone:
worn by disastrous winds, embedded into the igneous molten earth’s crust;
ornamented with red and yellow ocher, crushed green malachite, blue lapis
lazuli; hands compassionately streak on cool, damp rock, telling tales of
Avalokiteshvara; blue and gold dragon generously dipping scales into
disturbed indigo waves, guiding fisherman.
Om mani padme hum, om mani padme hum, vibrating my ancient stone
Let the pigments enter through meek, broken skin–poor wounds of foolish
despair, missing from sea, missing from hearts, lack of lack thereof; anger
flooding gentle souls, tearing into rotting eyes, oozing sulfuric scent,
staining nostrils; blood paints over old, dense, salty tears corroding seawall;
volcanic violence erupting, shifting limestone, breaking truth, distorting,
held in caves, internalized, eroding away, away, away, until away is here.
And when here comes from far away to tell the stories saved for tourists
who touch and grab and ask, “What’s that?”
It’s me.
My stories–history carved into once new formation;
Painted, decorated–wash it away and it’s still the same,
until hatred skewed what it was, what it is, breaking into
unidentifiable fragments of old, tortured rock.
Hidden in the icy green mountaintops, hidden in tangled
vine and filled with shrines–
A temple of what I used to be.
