All you can ever hope to be

The Sand Readers

Lift me up into your palm and gaze at my story. I will
not leave you here to walk this expanse alone. My small
sisters, my small brothers, have left themselves for you
to follow. The sea is that way. Everything else is this.

If you listen for the salt of my song, you will find it.
When you do, it may not be where you expect it.
I am paper. I am alphabet. I am the heart of old stars
forged by tears in the hands that hold your arrival.

Names unknown to us have crossed my lips, harbored
in the anchors of my silence like prayers and procession.
Who you were that delivered you to who you will become
can never be known beyond its time, then or even now.



Thus here, in these vast dunes, the future unfolds before
you for the small time it will. Everything is briefer than
you imagine. I will tell you this. The wisdom of particles
will whisper if you but know to listen, to surrender, entrust.

What we do here, where we choose to travel, shall ripple
beyond horizons we have yet to reach. This is what swells
in your hand. The sum of what you cannot hold, the tally
of all I was, all we were, all you can ever hope to be.

Joseph Gallo
December 22, 2012