We make our own paths.
There are none here.
 
The musty stench:
rank grass in heat. We tread
 
thick weeds to reach
where swallows mouthed clear
 
pools of song – where mouths
swallowed clear rain – where
 
a clear pool of rain
swallowed three mouths –
 
two soldiers, one boy
– misadventure. Now,
 
your fetid leaf-strewn mirror
returns an opaque sun,
 
a stagnant unfiltered flow:
forgetting. Nations misplacing
 
place. Unfenced space
between walls and words
 
for the slow growth of silence.
Few things here survive
 
a century. The verve
of reserve. Mud hidden in
 
grooves of boots. Pool
absence: no one knows
 
how wood and water lie
silent, save for the pulse
 
of stillness collecting,
stillness connecting stillness.