Cave as Metaphor for Sumpin Else

Living in a cave
carved from stone
with a spoon
replaced a thousand times
no matter how gently
I used the tool
it somehow got
whittled
down into a weapon
of mass destruction.

But still, in the eye
heart and neck of the
cave in which I sit
the air is cool
the light is dark
the sound is silent
the view from the opening
broad, wide, mountainous
blue
and the birds of every color
come to alight on my perch
seeking morsels maybe
but more I think because
they are curious to see
this human fowl
stranger to its own kind

I practice the walk
but my legs stumble
and my gait unsteady
at every turn peril
at every resting stop
I collapse in a heap
like a marionette awaiting
a pull from above
and my heart is on the verge
of stopping in the midst of
its marathon, it keeps
time with the battering
winds that chase the sands
from the crevices and dig
deep canals, tunnels and cliffs
from the landscape,
and the heart is a flutter
alight on fire, stabbed, crushed
pierced yet alive
it too grooved with time
dust and wind
and the cave in which I dwell
becomes the heart
becomes the cave.