Tender, Burning Song of Ours

Oh, that I were free from these chains,

At this very moment, free of them.

These invisible chains of sharp, cold, impersonal steel.

They have cut and chafed me roughly,

Tried to hold me, embrace me like a forge hammer,

Tried to make me be a chain,

Tried to harden me into something like iron,

But I never told them I was made of,

Earth and water and sky.

Perhaps I should tell them,

But I do not think it is in the nature of steel to love these things.

Soon though. I can hear the tick, tick, ticks,

And soon the chains will fall off.

I tell you I can hear the sound of it,

Growing loud in my ears.

Soon my water will rust them and freeze them,

Until they slip off like brown and crumbling leaves.

Soon my earth will melt them in its fires,

And they will drop to the ground like ash and slag.

Soon my sky will blow the brown leaves off the trees,

And the ashes will disappear from the face of the earth.

Then I will loose like an archer standing ready,

Shaft to ear, bow strung, tight and bent.

I will make such a song of it.

I will fly with my sky on the back of me,

Fly over mountains and desserts,

Over rough and blue steel seas.

I will fly much farther than anyone knew,

And land deep in your warm earth,

The shaft of me sunk into your springs of water,

And they will flow like an April thunderstorm.

Do you know the power of that coming?

Do you know the heat and force of it?

It is burning me already, Love.

It is pushing and pulling me against these chains.

We will make such a fire together,

Such a blazing light and tender heat,

Burning up the dead grass and leaves,

As is sometimes done in the spring,

And begin such a fierce little growing,

Making way for the new things,

The green and living things,

That strive and push and grow.

I will make such a sweet song of it,

Such a tender, burning song of ours.

Eric M. Petit