Dig in.
               The gods are watching
from inside the stone.
Waiting for you
to give them faces,
bodies, maybe even names.

This is your job,
you were born here
shoeless and shivering
to do this kind of work
only you can do.

                                     Dig in
just far enough to work them free.
They will not thank you
in particular but they will be.
And when they are, all sorts of things
become possible—living,
going, even loving.

But that comes later. Dig
the image out of what just seems,
out of what you see.
It is so hard to see
what is really there.
That’s where digging comes in,
the hands find what the eyes miss

and there they are
in all their hidden glory,
out in the world again,
ready to free you who set them free.

17 January 2021