You are the sacred temple of humanity
Born to suffer
Strong enough to plow fields of clay and stone and fear

Your fear
Our fear, all of our fear
The world’s fear dark at night and invisible in moonlight
Hidden eyes around a fire, around a pole
Around and around
Fire and a winter pole
Cold because we know it as an old god of the playground
King of the tetherball and black magic master at no rules four-square
Cold beacon
Hibernation and exaggerated death ritual and sleep and morphine and skin

You are the alchemist
You are able to make the fields holy like our sacred reservoir
The flood plain of East Texas vibrates
Monks and rivers and trees pushing through eyes
Your eyes on the island and in sky and perfect

Eyes of sacred men and great writers
Drunks and workers and painters and photoshop artists
And weed dealers

There are robots and there are men who forget
And there are men who die a thousand times forever in small moments every night during summer like mayflies in scattered lights
Like the robot alchemist

To create, to die, to die again