The Mound

You are if you last. You loom
Large if you last a long time.

So, you have been. So you were.
No one knows when you were made.

Tales are told of what you hold—
A mage, a long ship, jeweled chests.

Could be. Could be you just were,
No ore, no hoard—heap of earth.

Could be the ground shoved up there,
Hove the ridge of you in view.

Could be you’re no tomb, just rock,
Stone hill that used to have peaks

Snow high and sharp as snake fangs,
Like you’d latched on to the sky.

That’s all done. Those teeth rinsed down
To the sea and left you, stumped.

Or you are in fact a tomb,
A tell. All these bones you’ve held

From the sky, kept crushed and dry,
Will show up soon, white as rain,

And you’ll sink to gape at last,
Cave cut for what’s in your past.