Quarry Poem by Ross Cohen

Cairn-filled, rock crag, grackle-sound in sunken stonework.
Lost are bearings, lost the sure footings I set
Down before this: a broken quarry
Chock-full of broken

Visions high-heaped, piled tall and heaven-bound.
Quick now, lift a stone off quartered
Earth: one stolen totem won’t mar spoiled ground.
Turn, then return,

Strip land clean of crystal stone now, and now, and
Now again. Dig deeply and leave nothing
Out, no wasted carrion. Stack, and stack, and
Stack until topple

-tall. A tower I must build, higher than those
I’ve built before, of humble and simple phrase.
This is my charge. This, my fresh start:
New struggle, new heights.