Prayer to the White Tank Mountain Natives, 5000 B.C.
Studying your bold strokes on these ancient boulders,
I pause, not knowing how to decipher this.
One massive stone, the length of a manse and twice
the height and depth, obliquely rises, pockmarked, weary.
Centered there, a head of elk or deer.
And what is this, a firebird? Above it,
symbol for a spear or arrow.
Here’s a massive book printed in stone,
a gritty granite tome worthy of a closer look.
Old tellers of these tales, to you
I send my prayer, not through air or earth,
fire or water, but through the
words upon this sheet that will,
unlike your cogent strokes,
wither to ash in dusty years to come:
May some act of mine,
may a word or two I utter on these pages,
a phrase or trope I write or say
remain a little past my calendared days,
and charm the way your strokes have done
down through these nearly countless ages.