Borealis

Was it fortune or destiny that I saw her then, a wisp of ribbon light? She glided past, the song emanating from her person as surely as the aura of colors clothed and spun about her.
"Wait!" I called, but I knew I may as well try and stop the morning. I followed. Vibrant multi-chromatic strings of light writhed and whirled in her wake like wings, raising prickles on my skin where they stroked and swept. I noticed nothing but she, in all this, and now I can scarce recall anything save her form in flight. My vague recollections of the path we followed involved no burn, no memory if any bubbling brook or the sound of trickling water over river stones. The scene we drifted through, for I recall no walking, was fae, pierced by mercurial shafts of lunar silver.
Abstractions of trees and brush outlined the narrow trail, mere shadows on the wall with the iridescent flame flickering before me. Perhaps we traveled, or perhaps the landscape simply slid past as we ascended into the hilltops.  Time passed as a series of impossibly fast, freeze-frame images, lightning fast, glacier slow, and eventually we arrived.
I walked up beside her, gazing over a precipitous clifftop across a valley of lights: a city of embers and bonfires, or sparks and fireplaces. She spoke, and her voice was sweeter, even, than the song now silenced. I could not look at her face.
"These are their loves, and they spark and burn to dust. These are their hopes, warmth in cold and light in the dark. These are their memories, brilliant, destructive, and beautiful as the stars. These are their lives, fireflies in a magical, mysterious world. Fly, burn bright, and you will receive what's given."
Before I could respond, she leapt from the cliff's edge, sailing into the sky. The entire sky glowed like a new dawn of wind and colors, an iridescent flame burning at the horizon of time. And I knew, I knew I must leap after her.

I do not know if I leapt or if I woke first. I woke in my be, that night, whispers of a distant stream prevalent in my head. Sitting here now, sputtering candle dimly illuminating this scratchy parchment on which I write, I wonder if I dreamed it all - could I have dreamed it all? But each time I hear that trickling burn, I know, I know, I must return, return to that world of fire and light, and leap into the night, become the dawn.


When the wine of her lips upon this heart sits
and the song of her memory
most luxurious melody
in my mind no recollection rests
in my soul a holy honey sits
honeybees buzzing will you be mine
until sunset dawns on the midnight of time?