Stone Woman Gives Birth To A Child At Night

When I get back down to the truck with my backpack
I dig out my keys and here I am
back in America

It was only one night in a tent, alone on a peak,
so quiet I might have actually been nowhere

I never meant to pretend there's another world
apart from this one we're in
but I was briefly adrift in a night sky
before being re-immersed in this endless et cetera
Now I remember the news and the names
and who I am and where on the map I went

I could see the whole horizon
the Earth bending off forever

then I plugged my dead phone back in
the old cacophony rushes in

Awash in privilege, we hold our meditation retreats
out of earshot from the world's bombing and cries
This August is mercifully free so far from
the end of world smoke filled forest fire skies
I crouch by my truck's sideview mirror and look close
at the folds of my scowling face through the dust
and I think
"Am I just another in a long line of doomsday sayers
feeling this apocalyptic weight?"

Isn't an end and beginning married, embracing, birthing,
clearing out space?

Last night I read a confusing sentence in my headlamp light:
"A stone woman gives birth to a child at night"
Does it mean
an empty womb brings forth an empty child?

empty crying
empty night sky

and that baby is I