in parentheses

With my hands I cut the valley and raise up the earth beyond the clouds. A whisper and the flues meet icy black at the falls. A shout and the land spreads. A cry and the ocean snaps wave rove upon wave. My heavy cough makes sharp the cliffs and the smoke from my lips make your paths. It is dark upon the land but with the fire on my thumbs I spot the sun on the clouds. The birds are the hair pulled from my head by the blowzy wind and the sheep and lamb from my sprinkled beard and the cows and critters and all manners of beast from the spittle drawling from my mouth. Then I come to you. I make you from stone, but you break away. I make you from the old earth, but you crumble away. So I take you from the water. I draw your lips. I shape your body. I break a star on a stone and give you eyes. And then I say to you: live like the water and you run away.