Sandstone

Space to space,
place to place,
from the Rose Red City,
through the canyons of Arizona
to this disused quarry.
These faces stand
rosy gold and silver,
glittering mica and mercury.
A crux:
a matrix of radiance,
of carved crests
and cut shadows.
A furrowed brow
of metamorphoses,
This is the wall of the law,
the wall of the kingdom;
a reckoning.
It takes your perception,
and your presence
to carry the weight
of the curved stone,
like a wave.
It takes back time, absorbs
and weeps again.
It embraces
the old light and the new,
and questions you
with all that has happened,
and all that can.
It includes us
in its impermanent
transformations,
and buries us
in its rolling red layers
of sunset and dawn.