the devil dwells in the mountain
of my thoughts
between the layers
of granite and shale and
the compacted dirt of pride
swelling up to the summit
each day he crawls
out of the mountain
to join me at the pinnacle
and we stand together
the devil and I
looking down
upon the ravaged valleys
of my life
and as we stand
he sometimes meets
my gaze and sweeps
his sinuous arms
across the panorama
of my shadow times
and tells me that
at the snap of his fingers
and for a small fee
I could conquer them
I could even blot them out,
he says, if I wanted to
but as I gaze on the land below
strewn with barren trees
and the ash of foregone dreams
now lumped
into the crusted dirt
I feel no revulsion
no cause for war
these barren rivulets of history
are a grief not to be ransacked
but redeemed
as a forest awaiting
the renewal that rests in embers
when her rivers
will be refilled
and her roots overrun
with mycelia and phlox
One day
if I have courage enough
I will blow the devil away
as vapor
and go down
the mountain
to water a small patch
of ashen earth
then I will wait there
and watch
for a sapling to rise up
from the ruin