a chunk of mount olympus

in pale imitation of Charles Simics' "Stone"

Ranch-style haunt of tiny carbon gods,
Slate-roofed shelter from Hera’s wrath and sandal-slap,
Inside this jagged polygon, dense walls impose on tiny rooms.
Molecules, packed shoulder to shoulder, still wriggle.

Inside this solid I would be safe,
Locked inside a stout-walled vault,
Spartan, dim, impenetrable.
I’ll claim my corner and crouch, among huddled molecules, satisfied,
protected from the tricks of fickle earth;
walled in from tremor, from storm, from tidal wave.

Inside, I trace a path, pace to pass time,
I wander the labyrinth.
Each footfall stirs the trapped air,
grinds stone into dust.
Lonesome for the world,
With fingertips I'll trace names on the stone wall,
the shapes of trees, of wooden houses and the sun.

Worn by relentless single steps,
riven by the rub of soft flesh,
chiseled, slowly, by a trickle of exhaled air,
the stout walls erode to threadbare.

These claustrophobic molecules
break away in slow single file
as pebble, or mote, or grain of sand,
patiently dismantling this stone shelter,
dispersing my Olympus.

Time erodes what elements cannot crack;
My breath will unravel what gods can’t break apart.