new friends those one’s who’ve just
disembarked feel the gentle winds and
velvet fields in the valley of his presence
unaware there is magma beneath his earth
that one mountain’s smile is disabled
another’s cheek is cracked and bulging
there is a field where steam scalds the
soil and nothing grows
close ones of his once-burned now scarred
still visit but know the ferry’s schedule
I watch the time closely when I’m there and try
to take the wider paths those well-maintained
and open to the sun
the predictably safer journeys