We gather
and we kneel
(our knees softly
kissing dust,
flesh of ancestors
and silent gods).

This is distance.
This is degradation.

Leathered cheeks,
rigid skin an echo
of dried cracked earth,
ancient cracked stone.

We are significant.
We are desiccated.

Colors wash out here,
(you will learn
your place)
where light crashes
at oblique angles.

This is glory.
This is captivity.

Hands curl in spasm,
palsied wrists
defiant of commands.
Eyes, dry like leathered skin,
consume the light,
brown and cracked,
that pulls silhouettes
long behind.

We blink.
We breathe.

Dusty light stretches
darkness. How malleable
shadow is...

This is our prayer.
This is important.

We will grow wings.
We will learn to fly.