The Shifting Cliff (Poem)

A small, giant man stooped low,
out from the overhang above his head,
and into a word-strewn land.

He untethered himself from the rock face,
connecting with the open plains stretching out before him as a palm face opening quietly.
Walking forward, he looked backwards,
at the heart of his hearth,
at the embers like small suns flickering in nighttime shade.

Walking further, he began his life cant,
a chant for life and passage,
and he could slowly feel himself become lighter and lighter,
barely crushing the tips of grass blades under his bare soles,
rising, rising, to cloud shards blanketing his barren plains.

"This is not the end," he chanted,
the cant approaching its climax,
its mountain peak of emotion,
just as he turned and faced the jagged edge rising haughtily
towards clouds like inkstains.
"Oh what a giddy thing," he murmured,
as his outstretched hands beckoned words from their lowly heights.

Then, words, tumbling and winnowing chaff from field, rose.
They rose and rose to the tiny man's arms stretched like taut branches across a horizon,
and danced like marionette strings in the man's smile,
as he hurled them at the shifting cliffs, their faces melting and mocking,
daring his attack.

Screaming, the cliff sides changed and changed, dodging and dying,
crumbling like crushed teeth down their sides,
as the giant finished the chant's final verse,
grew heavy again,
and trudged backwards into his cave.

The nighttime shade embers flickered welcome and happiness,
even as tumbling stones cracked and wedged themselves over the entrance to his home.
"The day grows longer," he whispered to himself,
as he poked the fire into life with his fingers, stirring coals filled with images.