endless

you and we,
young, and not a product of her time,
approached the shrine
around the rusted pickup truck,
covered densely in lichen and moss
creeping plants climb on and inside her.
you looked to us in trepidatious pause.
"yes" our hands said softly. "go ahead"
then forward, cautiously, your bare feet stepped,
that pretty head bowed down to greet the truck,
recognizing that she too was earth,
ripped too soon from earth,
shaped into a metal monster, but:
she, with centuries, shall return to ore,
and until then, she waits beneath the trees,
a still survivor of her awful age,
hosting, now, her epiphytes and bugs.
heartfelt gratitude was joined by seed,
scattered from your hand across her hood.
schools of birds swum down to feed,
their chirps and songs a gift to the machine
that spends her rust-years in this small clearing

we ran barefoot
on burning-yellow summer grass,
sea gleaming, painting, singing, breathing.
"look!" you said, and horizon-pointed
to where billowing white sails in the low sky
stuffed the cloudful blueness fuller-er,
like a hungry teen on harvest moon.
"sail day!" you sang

and we ran barefoot
under peeling madrones
back to the village!
to tell grenna & mama,
to sing it in the streets,
"sail day! sail day!"
sing it in the gardens,
sing it in the fields.
run!
past rusted relics of grenny's time

and we ran barefoot
out to the end of the pier,
where wind played with our patchwork skirts
as lively as it pushes a sail.
we left dandelions in the shrine's beak,
drank the salty blue air
and dreamt of what the ships would bring

bicycle-bits and books
precious paper and paint
peculiar computer-parts
parcels from far-off friends
medicines and machines
and tales told by sailors
who travel mother sea's windy back