There is nothing for you here
save the chaff from the wheat,
still, scattered husks and stems,

No inlets running clear
in a Colorado summer's heat,
ice flashing over pyrite gems,

No woman seeking to swallow
the wilderness in you,
searching above the timberline
for a hidden clearing,
built by a forgotten people
whose song washes over grey rock,
livening arid skies.

Your words are riven and hollow,
flashing with the empty force of galena blue,
painfully excavated from some shadowed mine
and flung about like a sheep before the shearing.
You forget the summer nights, warm and deep,
settling on us like the powdery folds of a velvet-lined box,
when we divined the too-cold night for non-existent fireflies.

There is no place for you under this sun.
You have disowned the fire, the brand,
every covenant and token you once held.

Listen to the trees splitting, one by one,
as by your own callused iron hand,
gripping the pitiless axe, they are felled.

Nicola J. Donaven
Copyright 2001, all rights reserved.