Mirages

Someone built a statue with an arched back
In a desert far from any city.
Satisfied, they walked away to go build houses
In a crowd of empty towers, leaving behind
Only a vial or two of sanity.
Now, amongst grains of sand that all blend together
Under the foggy lens of distance
The statue wonders a statue’s wonderings.

By birthright it looks down at his feet but
The glistening of the vials laid in the sand
Tell it to look up into the horizon.
Sometimes there is the sun,
Sometimes there are stars,
Sometimes there are tides of windsurfing dust
That would sting uncrafted eyes.
Upon such visions
The statue dreams a statue’s dreams.

With age came the summer’s pulsing delirium
And a wayward light come afoot from a town.
A town.
Homes that belittled the desert’s unwelcoming,
Markets that lay waste to the desert’s scarcity
Fountains, wells that conquer the desert’s thirst.
People.
People that talked and traversed,
People that sang and danced,
People that cried and prayed,
People that worked and created,
People that cared and loved,
People that were so very far away.
And when the light resumed the beaten of its paths
The statue wanted a statue’s wantings.

Winter brought a cold unfelt to
The statue’s stone stature,
But deadly to the curious adventures of the light
That the statue once found so alluring.
Left with only its solitude and diminishing
Vial (or two) of opiate delusions
The statue wanted to crumble.