Seth Wall

Creosote, When It Rains

Seth Wall

Westward I am going. They say to do so while I’m young. They say to do so while I can. Westward I am going; I am neither young nor tired.

I’ve seen the eyes that hold. They held and then grew heavy. They are the stones beneath the sea. She dropped them there, not I. I am neither young nor tired.

The ones I cared to know, they now speak mostly in the breeze. Its eastward rush opposes me. I sense them in its strength. I am neither young nor tired.

My words are newly come. The vastness here billets their mass. Perhaps they will not leave again. I wish to know them well. I am neither young nor tired.

A desert rain quells, it tames the tired and the aging. These feet have taken to its stone; its vacuum, my old friend. I am neither young nor tired.

Serrations on the verge, like the raucousness of the day, have stepped behind distending night, and peace revisits me. I am neither young nor tired.

Their clamant talk has ceased. Our patterns are strewn overhead. All old advice is sleeping now. I found no summons there. I am neither young nor tired.

Those urgencies subside. The saguaros shame my former pleas. Creosote cares less for witness. No tears remain to shed. I am neither young nor tired.