Nathan Tompkins

Fading

My music can be found in roots mining 
                                      for minerals beneath the trees,
in the blood drying brown on rusted barbed wire
in the frigid depths of the snowmelt creek
burning the air from your lungs
it can be found in the beat
of gravel grinding away the mountain top
or locust fires cracking the earth dry.

But sound can fade,
sound can fade…
dying on the eardrum.

Smother the whispers
just below the waves
one foot
two
three…most soundwaves can’t feel their way 
                                             in crumbling halls
the lips flicker in the light,
but the music
                          dies at the border.

Nathan Tompkins is a writer living in Portland, Oregon. His work has been included in Maudlin House, Into the Void, Windfall, and many others. Lately, he's a creative writing student at Portland State University.