-restoring balance is a process, and patience is a virtue-

Rebellious Qi

I could
continue on through untamed grasses
with trusted blade and beast,
with a crust about the soul,
but I stand fast in these very footprints
at the cusp of looming pins
for a glimpse of a whisper,

for another moment of the past
and powders sifted in autumn winds
where the melody of fruits and flutes
become the seeds of anew,
become steel and jade
malleated to a perfect tip
of beautiful brutality
cast by an unsure hand,
cast into a ditch
filled with the bodies of travelers
who have stepped beyond
these very footprints,
these unmarked boundaries
in search of distant songs
played across thistles and thyme
for desperate ears,
for lost soldiers of fortune
that covet the splendid and genteel
forms of tenor tones
emitted from bamboo shoots,
emitted from the flawless subtlety
of lips pressed precisely
to deliver the founding chord
brought forth by sages and simpletons,
brought to these very footprints
where in hesitant defiance
I stand.

-J Hoyt