Last of the Ascension (Verse) - 16
Broiling Below
Below—
time does not pass—
it settles.
Silence holds—
what has not been released.
The mourner waits.
Water presses overhead—
a slow remembering.
Stone receives it—
without protest.
No fire—
none needed.
Warmth is not absent—
only altered.
Grief remains—
sufficient.
Listening—
is the only act.
Water over shell.
Tide against bone.
Voices above, still calling.
They cried there—
where the wind turned.
Where no one came—
not even the one who wept.
She does not flinch—
because there is nothing left to protect.
Form remains—
not flesh, but intention.
Hands move—
steady, though no longer living.
Stones before her—
not altar, not offering.
Memory.
Shell.
Seed.
Name.
She does not read the words—
she inhabits them.
Before the naming—
before the forgetting—
this was home.
Her people—
not preserved, not returned.
She stood at the edge—
not to conquer—
to ask—
for reversal.
The tide did not answer.
The gulls remember—
they always have.
He is coming.
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