Elemental

Messages can arrive as breath—mostly unnoticed,
or as a breeze to cool the sweat of effort.
These I accept with gratitude,
But not the whirlwind leveling the walls that shield me. 

Messages can condense like dew into jewel droplets,
or a cooling trickle in a dusty throat.
They take no effort to appreciate.
But just as my meandering tears won’t water a garden,
even desperate thirst won’t welcome the crashing storm wave. 

Messages can glow like settled embers in the hearth,
or the tamed fire of the forge.
I can be warmed; I can be used without fear.
But a firestorm brings only dread; and explosions horror.

Messages can drop as seeds into earth,
Or into my hands like stones.
In my hands, they are a comfortable weight, 
but so bruising when flung.