My End of the Trail

I hung my name out, forgotten, rags of old laundry.
Sometimes I still heard it rattle in the emptiness of my throat:
sullen hums, barren cicada wing-strokes:
an old sound, not my own.  It belonged to something else,
was stranded wind-torn in a lifetime
we had long left behind, like footprints
on broken grass.  All around me, the signs of summer,
not our green home,
but burnt, unforgiving: a sky bleached like bone.
We cannot stop, or stand still,
to gather new possibilities.
We have to move on,
have been forced to move on.

Sing a name for me now.  Be magpie and bluejay for me;
call back our old songs from the dust, from long miles
in the sun.  All around me, you are singing.
We cannot stop, to stand still,
but we can call to each other: we can call our own names,
even in this land, yes,
even under this sky.