Setting self upon the step,
and pushing mine sweating forehead
to the toes of the lily meek ones,
I find lithesome strength in those
who crack under the slightest weight.

For you, only you,
whose body splits from a
solitary raindrop shall I bend myself
before and pledge. To your wilted hand
only I press my mouth to taste
the limpid greatness that is your tender palm.

By every breath you are slashed,
tossed to the earth that swallows you;
but into my arms I scoop you high
and I feel the density that is your soul.
Like water I try to clench you close
but splash you do aside, and
I am in awe.

Alone thin blade of greensward that you are,
I have not the worthiness to place into
prose your brevity and bravery as
you affront in unspoken trembling the
cruelest things and coldest darks.

Yes, to you, to those brittle clay ones
I do love, and find the wisdom I must
apprehend to quench the dreariness and
dire that is the bitter steel and the harsh
lash that blow the good from
so many a heart.

To them I kneel,
so to touch the blood pool that
is eternally flowing and filling from
their wounds.

Them, those chagrin fingers gnarled
from all the shoveling they must perform
to simply live. To you,
sufferers fair, I see truth.

You are the only power
that understand the word of gods, and so
every divine letter of the exalted
echo in your eyes;
I hear it.

Praying lips you all hush weakly,
tremulous and breaking but still boldly
towards the light you all hymn courageously:

We rise. We must rise.