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The Rise of Atlas<br />
Filter<br />
Titan, stand on the western edge<br />
<strong>St</strong>rain at the bosom of your Gaia<br />
The carnal burgeon aching for celestial embrace<br />
Here engage the paramount of your eternal caveat:<br />
Collapse and a vernal deity grips your fate<br />
Callouses upon balls of your split and powerful feet<br />
Forged upon each to form mountains<br />
An unforgiving rock firm at abused heels<br />
In great heat this buxom beauty lay beneath<br />
Watching you labor, the sky superior as your penance<br />
Weary in heart and in vain,<br />
Break to your tender knees Atlas, man of two worlds<br />
Careful to keep separate past from your future<br />
Tasked with quiet endurance -<br />
Endure<br />
But oh, dear Titan, tender care to receive<br />
Education in your own strength<br />
While the weight of countless galaxies<br />
Slips on two strapped strained shoulders<br />
For after defeat you will not know a fiber<br />
From within each beating arm<br />
That does not equal in strength<br />
The desire<br />
For your victory<br />
So amend yourself, oppose with daggers for eyes<br />
Return fixed: abiding as you were<br />
Raise, Hoist, thus Aspire!<br />
Rise up!<br />
To lift the blue<br />
The memory of the manmade thunder<br />
Rings within my ears.<br />
The smell of sulfur<br />
Lingers.<br />
I am led through a field<br />
Of comrades and friends,<br />
Their dust-covered faces<br />
Withered and worn.<br />
Then there’s the screaming.<br />
Men screaming for life<br />
Or death<br />
Or stillness.<br />
They sit.<br />
They stare.<br />
A glossy filter covers and dulls<br />
The color in their eyes.<br />
They are photographers,<br />
Filtering out<br />
The subject they shoot.<br />
It’s too intense.<br />
—Kyla Hadenfelt<br />
—Holly Norton<br />
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