Adam

it is addressed thusly:

An ode.

it reads:

I want to be like the old ones
Walking long endless days
Among the grasses and sighs of summer
Where there cities of stone
And among the cairns and high places
The depths of lakes and seas
Call out in response to light steps
And deep, far places loom
Breathing with unseen life

I want to be like the ancient ones
Who climbed the rope to heaven
And came down again to sit
For days over days and nights
On the grotesque cliffs
And breathe the morning dews
Sleeping mildly under moons
To awake and continue always
Unceasing in thought

I want to be like the elders
Who of old were unknowable
Singing the first tones
To that unceasing song
So that man joined
Who plucked the strings
Of the first bows and harps
Whose hands spoke to the stones
And moved them, Whose hands
Knew what the earth was.

I want to be like those
Whom I have for but names
Singular, but never alone
With no need for pining
Or fearing or despairing
Whose lights were flames
And minds were mirrors
Who wrote the first word
And erased it
Because the world was too young.

- Ephrem Antony Gray

Reproduced with permission from Symposium of Fire