calling

Smoke curls away, some dismal signal, some coveted fire abides. Gray skies and the dance of flecks of ash. Fingertips stained, skin cracked by hot embers and cold dry wind, the vague painted on look of concentration cast towards the earth or air. Dogs shuffle and paw at the damp ground, the weather turning cold again as the day dwindles into cinders and afterthoughts. The flesh endures these wan toxins and the flecks and sparks of perpetual change. The flesh continues asking, even though all the questions are through.

You are somewhere, tangled in the atmosphere, your tongue cluttered with things you can not say. You shine, layered in light and sky. You glow, a ghost of untrammeled notions, a measure of unventured depths. You shoulder burden after burden, always laden with more than your fair share. You sort through the stacks, always able to find just the right spine to crack. The words always find you, and you treat them well for their efforts. If I knew it, I would say your name.

There aren't fortunes made with the little I happen to know. There aren't fates awaiting my change of color or my shift of thought. I name the aches and watch the fauna and gain nothing for any victory won. I sort some words, take some notes, leaving with a little less every time. It is true that I could find you, divine your traces and pick up your track where ever your feet have fallen. But my talent is in the telling. My calling is only the sorting of the shambles, the discovery of what it takes a thing to break. Every story ever written, an aim towards the end.