An Assignment

From Memory:

There is a thick hot fog that sits low in the wood at midday.  It seeps into the bark of each ancient oak tree and dissolves down through roots and out again into the soil, where, by the rising of the moon, it has done it’s waiting.

I am there, perched upon a great grey boulder, which has cracked nearly in half from time.  It has no moss, though it’s little brothers are almost covered by the stuff, dotting the forest floor hidden in and amongst leafy ferns.  I am here to watch  my moon shadow stretch.  When it reaches the tip of my rock’s crevice,

it is time.

The fog begins to creep, up, past worms and bones. 

It rises from each blade of grass,

out the very tips, up from the graves below.

When I breath deep, it settles in me and I understand.  

The air, this fog, is old.  And it has been breathed before,

by killers

and saints

and Romans

and natives

and thieves

and lovers

and me

and the ones I lost.