I cuddle the streets in the cloud of my shadow,

The water of the bay dredges my thoughts.

Do the centuries regard me as god

As I tease the free moon for moments of heaven?

The patchwork of my fields steals the black breath of the grass

That floods the eyes of the refugee fox.

The birds, disturbed, are the words of the wind

And the graveyard of the dead worships my silence.

I am forever unbolting the night from the day,

Unsettling my trees that grip at the truth.

Tomorrow my strength will shoulder the sun,

As the Everest of myself darkens all life.

Who would dare walk along the spine of my midnight,

Dizzy below the stained-glass of the stars?

Only the farmer married to the dawn

As he quarries the moon in a bucket of sky.

Peter Thabit Jones © 2022

Published in GARDEN OF CLOUDS/NEW AND SELECTED POEMS by Peter Thabit Jones, 2020