Riddles

I rise up in flame, then downwards I go
And I am defeated with only one blow.

I repeat many times in the lives of men.
My hands do the motions again and again.
I have no feet to roam where I may
But I run in a circle two times every day.

Born of the land, lives in the sea.
It drifts with the wind, yet it is not free.
It kisses the sky with its great wings of white,
But this heavy leviathan never takes flight.

The titan of the river stands
With planted feet and outstretched hands.
She guards the waters down below
As swiftly past her legs they go.
A friend she is to travelers,
But greeting them she never stirs.
They climb upon her shoulders lank
And thus they pass from bank to bank.

Expression it has, thinking it lacks.
One learns many things by reading its tracks.
First of tree, then of bird, then of plastic and steel,
It has power to hurt, but also to heal.
It waxes strong by the light of man
Yet daily is bled by the stroke of his hand.

I reach for the sky and delve in the earth
Quite sturdy am I and great is my girth.
Yet they hew my corpse, they harvest my blood,
They ravage my home leaving nothing but mud.
Sometimes o’er my grave they lay great piles of stone,
But beneath them is neither a coffin nor bone.

What bites with speed through flesh and bone
Yet has no teeth to call its own?
Beneath its guard a hand grabs hold
And takes it as a chime is tolled.

I stand out in darkness, am hidden by day.
The seeker I aid and the thief I betray.
I have power to save in the bleak of night,
Yet many there are I send into flight.
So small am I in a hand I may lie,
Yet people will flinch if they meet my eye.

I can be large, though I start out small.
My breathing tongues are what make me tall.
I beat my foes down as I struggles to rise,
Coughing up soot as I lick the skies.
Man is my friend but I tear his work down,
Eat up his fields and ruin his town.

A bed of many blades there lies upon an open stretch
Whose many readied blades on no one's flesh will ever catch.
They bend and stoop beneath the feet of those who travel by,
Then, when alone they stand upright and rise to meet the sky.
These blades dig deep and splinter out but not in flesh or bone,
Though great machines run through the ranks, and every tip they hone.

Few folks can say they ever saw
A part of me, save mouth or jaw.
I open these with little din
And they, undaunted, wander in.
I shut my mouth and, them in tow,
High up above the ground I go.
Or down I dive and there I cease,
Where those that entered I release.
(I give them but one parting cry.
A single chime is my goodbye.)