To yield and climb
these buttered-rung heights
is to be something
above that station we have known.

This yielding is to
break the hands that hold
shoulders facing a
tired, setting sun of growing fire.

The yield of hope
is necessary when we know
what mistakes will come
to not collaborate but to eviscerate

and yield for nought
if you do not know. As the tired
limbs of trees glow;
that this is not make believe.

Forever in a yield to
whomever makes the
future a door ajar.
To which we yield in creaking hinge.