The elders

is it the sun's grip
on the limbs of trees

is it the longer shadows
that guide me to a past
I rarely know now

winds of last night
beckoned me in my
sleep to places my
bare feet once touched

to the waters my
bones, flesh and blood
had arrived too late to

to the restless grains
of sand that danced
when zephyrs stirred
the waters of the sky

to the thirsty roots
that grew like forests
inside the torrid land
and sometimes found
themselves exposed
and gnarled and weary

the scattered remains
of gray giants littered
those restless hills and
were fodder for them
and relentless wind

beneath their armor
the giants bore silky
bleached bodies of
which my fingertips
could not ignore

between their flesh
and armor was an
ethereal silky tomb
which housed the elder
gods in aged cocoons

from their bodies
coiled the veins of
reverence or guilt

there was abandoned
Eden with its renounced
splendor and ambrosia
I dared not to resist

my feet became their
roots and snaked into
the cool damp below
and my back arched
in the current gliding
through the slender grass

the bones, flesh and blood
too late for the waters
I still long to breathe,
these were their device
they dreamt of long
before they drifted from
their parents in the wind

they uprooted me and
did as their parents did
casting me out into
the late August wind
and I was lost to them