Four and twenty years
The flower in the room
Lain closed
Was no more than dim statue
Vase without rose
Color without sight
Shape losing distinction
And those who sought its open
Knew not the riddle
And so the light that came
Was always mute
Hesitant on ringing cusp
So close to elucidate, yet
What we know .. can simply be words
Spoken without access
As skater will skim surface
Unbeknownst of depth
So our hearts may idle dormant
Through many turning seasons
Held in abayance as treasure is horded
Lost over time to silentio
**
Do not put off finding your source
Though deep it runs beneath the world
Gathering sediment, silt and clay
What shape will we form, when lifted out?
Held to inspection, as writhing newborn
The metal in our veins fastening
This soul of salt 
This fusion of minerals 
Cast against unwanted chessboard
Where all demand a role
How do we learn to wade?
The fridgid waters of other’s demands
Yolking us back to previous destination
When all we strive for is the warrior pose
Striking our way forward in certitude
It is hard to remain resolute
In the eye of other’s storms
To hold on when you are being tossed
Over the edge of plundering vessel
**
Yet
Remember
You were born in motion
Swimming before breath
Breath before word
And they baptized you, based on their own heaviness
And they spooled you out, cast wide into frothy sea
Attempting to repair themselves in their seizure, of your liberty
**
It is not, returning to them, you go
But the highlands
Where only those able to breathe thin air
Can survive 
Among the castaways and forgotten
You found yourself
Knew the piston of your core
For its oiled heart
Ticking over, even as you held your breath
These many years of half won life
**
Watch the glimmering sky dispose day and usher gloves of dark
As mime artist speaks in gestured dance
See the low swoop of heavy headed swallows
Break apart and like gloaming magnet, reassert
Their whole in sight of land, gleaming in shortening pathway
Just beyond marbled horizon, saturated in indigo pulse
Where all you always were, stands waiting
To be claimed, and shone, and worn
In the splendor of selfhood, eager to push forward and meet approaching dawn