Farewell Mountain

by Myronn Hardy

Going up the mountain     you notice
the green neon surrounding that holy
place     that strip of aspiration
never abandoned. It’s almost dark
but you see the gilded
grain fields then a gilded sphere
dangling from a woman’s ear.
She is next to you.
She is telling someone over the phone
not to leave. The olive trees are jagged.
You are thinking of swords going
in     opening a thing without wounds.
You feel the sting     the jolts.
Silence is agony within the agony.
The bus wheels hit every pothole
on that newly paved road.
You are weeping for what you must give up.
You pass a town where everyone
appears green neon.
The streetlights are green.
The apples they harvested were green.
The café televisions blaring football
cascade green over rapt faces.
What you have wrought will remain.
They told you this in cluttered
rooms     beneath chandleries    angel’s trumpets.
When they were brave to speak     they
were given two decades of confinement.
You are not confined.
You are leaving.
Back to a place moving backward.
That fool     his foolish followers are destroyers.
Burn it all. Burn it all down.
You foresee ruins like those here.
What was almost     pulverized to debris.
But you are not ruins.
You are placing limestone against itself.
So many blocks     fragments     the making
     the making.