The Old Man in the Mountains

The old man slumbers 
in the boughs of heaven,
granite face turned to the sky.

Centuries glide by like glaciers.

He’s been there longer than anyone dreams, 
reclining among the pine trees and boulders, 
as the streams and rivers flow forever
and bears and wolves avoid the flames.

Speaking of dreams …

Every year, every spring,
In the fields, a man digs through earth
in sweat-stained T-shirts and yellow gloves, 
plunging his fingers into warm, wet soil, 
nursing poppies into the bright air. 

He pulls weeds and fixes fences.

Every night, he sits beneath stars, 
down jacket and woolen hat, cigarette in hand,
a man made to last forever.
He thinks. He acts. He is. 

Even as the darkness spreads in his chest. 

A pickup truck once tumbled down a cliff.
He walked away. No wonder 
he doesn’t think it will ever end.

But his story ends here,
in the earth, the roots, 
among the fallen leaves and tall grass. 

“I didn’t think this would happen.” 

He talks of kings and sleeps. 
Silence falls over empty fields. 
We dream of him as the man in the mountains
dreams the dream of history. 

This is not goodbye.

This is not thank you.
 
This is not I love you. 

Those words are not enough. 

And so the old man slumbers on
and the skies shade to nightfall
and the soil reclaims the seeds.