The Carving of Granite (a poem)

There is a deep, deep sadness that sits upon your shoulders,
causing your head to hang, drawing mirth (the lifeblood),
from every cell of your body, and piercing every
center of your self, from heart to groin, with longing.

Now you are upon the mountaintop, wind streaming wildly around.
If you have not yet wept, weep now.
Howl until each echo of your voice recedes
and is punished by the wind, like water to rock,
until it comes back to you as a song of beauty.

Where did you think you would hide that it would not find you?
There was never any way but through, and you have now
traversed the steep hillside, clambering over rock and shale
to appear here, now. Calibrate your sights, weigh your options
if you must, but in the end, all that you have put to the world
will come back to you like that echo that ever returns.

Let it become joy for you, this leaning into the wild.
Let your hands raise until they touch what is left of the sky.
Rejoice that what pierces you breaks you open,
so that all which is beauty may enter, unfettered by
your belief in what may or may not be so.

And when the wind gives you breath by which to sing,
let that leaden heart be winnowed away by the gusts
until the sliver that is left is only pure light.
Let your body sway and be moved.
Let that which is infinite find you.