I am the timber,
the vow,
the promise cut from ancient law.
Once I sang with wind and sun,
now I frame the gale of silence.

He falls
and the road rises.
He falls
and the road receives.
Stone bows to its maker,
dust gathers its hymn.
The burden must be lifted,
the promise must be borne.

His shoulder burns,
presses flame into my grain.
Splinter—song.
Splinter—psalm.
Each fracture sings Amen, Amen.

The sap stirs.
The sap remembers green.
The sap grieves.
The road hums:
we serve the same becoming.
The stones murmur:
what falls shall rise again.

And then
his torn light forgives me.
His blood crowns me.
His gasp names me holy.
He calls me Brother Beam.
He calls, “Brother Beam!”

I heal beneath his mercy.
Weight becomes worship.
Wound becomes word.

Now we move
Dust, Wood, God, Man
bound in one bearing,
each the motion of the other.

Even the rising
is part of the breaking.
Even the breaking
is part of the rising.