It holds you on their shoulders

Poetry 

                   (William Stafford)

 Its door opens near. It’s a shrine

by the road, it’s a flower  

in the parking lot of The Pentagon, it says, “Look around, 

listen. Feel the air.”  

It interrupts international telephone lines with a tune. 

When traffic lines jam, it gets out

and dances on the bridge. If great people get distracted by fame 

 they forget

this essential kind of breathing 

and they die inside their gold shell. 

When caravans cross deserts 

it is the secret treasure hidden under the jewels.

Sometimes commanders take us over, and they

try to impose their whole universe, 

how to succeed by daily calculation: 

I can’t eat that bread.  

___ 

It holds you on their shoulders 

You make games so it can't see

We stay in place seriously safe on level ground, not expecting soil to become unstable as tho some out of the picture 

Frame may swoop in, we stay in place 

It's no longer our place 

No more a game 

Even commanders rely on maps 

Even bakers rely on wheat

Even shoulders weary without spine 

Just as books balancing their folio 

Our earth strata rip rap holding man and mountain sand grains in time