Poetry – Page 14

Here We Stand by Ivan Calderon

We stand over burnt grass,
the night chokes the sky.
We stand under a breathless horizon,
the wind spews black sand.
We stain this world with rimy tears
and gag up sulfuric air.
We scratch at rocky soil and
pull no roots, only packed pumice.
We stand like furled calluses
And hide our faces from the mouth of night.

The sky was bright once
and the horizon could breathe.
It was an aurora who blushed,
and hung a high tapestry of the sea.
Once, plump castles flew
and the fiery pigments
of fleecy fields
poured out of the sky. Then

we peeled its prairies,
and brought its cathedrals asunder.
We gagged the stratosphere,
we invaded
on our gray clouds,
and we slew the sky.

Now, here we stand as titans.
Here we stand
radiant and bejeweled
alone
on a plateau
cold to the bone.