that is the burden (inspired by eliot, yeats, superman, the green lantern, markus zusak, dustin, john k sampson, and the doctor)

i am the one who stumbled
i am the one who called out the warning
it was my voice rising
on the mad wind that rushed past
and threw you into the crater

i am the heron and the frog
i am between the impulse and the action
between the stimulus and the emotion
i am nero and his fiddle
i am the firstborn child

i am the withering jew
hidden away in a basement
walking on tightropes
i am the one who kills the king
in every dream i have

i am the sweet silver bells
i am the oldest song
i am the fear and the joy
i am the center and the centrifuge
the savior and the damned

i am the last one
i am the judgment
i am the weight and the glory
and when my home burned
in the fires of pompeii

i was left
standing on a hillside
watching everything i know
buried
under mountains of ash