To be swept away
was not the vision.
That you would step
rock by rock to
the whirl of water turning
was all.
You wanted to rise
a city of chert
from the riverbed.
Walls deep and towering
to hold rivulets serpentine.
Spires of skyline
to dwarf a small beginning.
You offered a toe
and the river took
a quarry.
Whipping pull of limbs
into the vein of its
slithering, dragged
across scores and
hollows in stone.
The crack of bone
on rock will echo.
The clack of bones
in the bag of the crone.
A fragment of woodsmoke,
bodies
the trampled grass.
It was the sound
of the great whisper
of a trillion leaves
shushing the land
that shuttled me to you.
Your wrist in my hand
and the weight of you
against the pulling
was all we needed
to breathe.