Stealing their songs, we boiled them into toxins.

This morning's dragon exhales his gray humid
breath; its mist following the valley's contours,
is so much more than drizzle.

Here the path is narrow: a backbreaking fall on
one side, the mountain soaring as a sheer wall
on the other.

Rocks split, with no more agency than gravity,
while every particle of this world is measured
and misunderstood.

Step carefully old man beginning a new
thought. A bird hops, then flies, without
even a Good Morning tweet.

 

following the valleys contours “It is not surprising then that mythological dragons take their flight paths following the contours of mountains, valleys, and shorelines of different geographies as well as the differing historically engraved outlines of the psyche.” E. V. Vestergaard, “From Dragons to Leaders: Latvian and Japanese Psyches, and an Organic Consciousness," From paper presented at International Association for Jungian Studies Conference, Osaka, Japan, November 2019.