Dust & Rain

Walking through fallow fields
I stop to breathe the sweet approaching rain.
Can I speak of freedom here
in open air? Now? When I can't look
my-self (or both or all my selves) in the eye and
ask: Why are you here? What are you?

Doubt thunders while I cast my eyes
toward shadowed skies. It warns “don’t
look today in the eye until
you’re worthy.” Though even the rain
sings acceptance my eyes only drown
watching the drinking dust.

I see mossy stones laid in that dust stretched
over property lines where neighbors
lob tired words across, where hunters
hounds no longer run, where stone shards
lie memorizing winter. I lift one stone
firmly by its top and see the ancient
marks etched in its face. I lift it (cold dead thing)
and cast it far from me.

“Maker come unmake me, please.”