on another night / on another day

on another night / on another day

Michael David Jones

In the north there is a mountain,
stone unsundered,
splitting suburbs
and setting streets
crooked,
cold contrast to the valley of our birth.

I crouch at the peak,
in the level place
where a bench was once planted,
my eyes pitched to the south.

Once, the splintered wood
and rusted nails
knew the names of many,
bound in intertwined hearts.

I remember that cracked timber
and the second story carved
into that ramshackle seat,
words from another night.

They were the words of a man
who watched from the tower,
not waiting for sunrise
but hoping to see it,
a man who returned to tell the tale.

On the southern side of that mountain,
steps from a cliff, a cross has grown
from weathered iron,
a solitary sign
from another night.

On another day, on another hill,
in a different desert, on a different cross,

All is made well.

---

Michael David Jones
Poet, Educator

Michael's work can be found in eris & eros, Beyond Thought Creative Arts Journal, and Wingless Dreamer's Dark Poetry Anthology.

Photography by Clay Banks