Sidereal Stories

You’re hurting, Olwen, I know, and the glass is empty though it’s full. You’ll find little hope there; at the barrel bottom only dregs reside. And you might cower under the bed, shirking in shadows whose shapes you know; you shiver, under blankets piled high though the night is warm, and the wind stumbles against the shutters with drunken abandon, a sound you know and yet it frightens. This is it, you know this fear, this comfortable sickness whose poisons slyly sit near, known since the drugs of depression took hold.

I see it in your eyes, and remember mine as distant things.

It’s not only in dreams you can fly; it’s only in flight you may dream.

So leap with me, out the window into the night, past the breeze blowing across the waters where the lady waits, garbed in silver stars and moonlight, her fingers reaching through the ripples whose grasp we’ll evade like a whisper.

Trapped in the mirror of the waters, look down, we’re dancing on reflected stars.

Beneath the shadow of the mountain where the dragon sleeps, tiptoeing over his hoard of melted gold, our fleet figures bent in gilt reflections – linger not here, dear, roads await.

Into a thick and grasping wood, whose long-limbed mysteries and webs do collect uncertain travelers, we are not caught. Two roads, and no return, a cottage, a hovel, candle-lit faces in a bog – choose, Olwen, with love not fear.

Tell me you still yearn, you still burn with pain; tell me you must return beneath the covers, to Harold before the world, and I’ll let you go. Or follow me beneath the sea, where kelp forests wiggle like green worms, and orcas sing of the ocean’s melancholy weight and depth of being, and everything hears and agrees.

Little lasts forever; most worries are tomorrow – let’s glide across stars lupus and orion tonight, the bear lumbering over the pre-dawn sky whose tail is not yet lost to fear’s unknown, and leo and the little old lady whose rocking chair groans with eternity. I’ll tell you their stories, if you’ve lost yours in the struggle for hope, and Olwen, you’ll find the universe is not always whole, but it’s ready. Let it be, and let your heart soar, string-less as the bird over the storm, for there’s a time for rain and a time to be reborn, in red, in white, in black.

http://benjaminwblog.com/2014/05/sidereal-stories/

Tilikum - Canoeing

The sky was sunny Sunday noon
Three friends we went to Tilikum
Alongside fields and vineyards still
Green forests bright and rivers full
Came we at last upon a glade
Where sunlight on lake's mirror played

Canoes soon drifting over blue
The trees sweet singing anthems true
The birds high trilling good af'ernoon
Our boat and paddles swish in tune
Moored we our boat onto the bridge
Consumed our bread and climbed the ridge

To giant swings between the trees
Swing through the breeze and brush the leaves
stare to the sky, pines canopy
The wind, the earth, hea'ens panoply
Then down the path along the shores
Unhitch the boat on twilight's doors

The sunset's gaze determined face
In crimson rays the even's grace
A silver moon above our heads
sweet stars goodnight twilight descends


The sunlight stared askance through the trees, bright but not overbearing. It gleamed across the lake's gentle mirror, a sheet sheen, reflecting upside-down firs, pines, maples, and birch in every shade of green surrounding the lake. We paddled slowly, lethargically, watching the newts slither lazily through the gentle ripples and the minnows racing away in our wake. We swam in the golden gleam of afternoon, the water glistening beneath us as a dragon's hoard, and we gliding over its treasure.  The air was still, then breathed, and was still again, sending wafts of pine across the lake. Mooring our boat onto the docks, we vaulted the railing and ate a swift meal of bread, and drank sugary sweet drinks, speaking little as we listened to the world of birds and ripples, wind and faith.
Then we split for the swings. Along a skinny trail, with near invisible gossamer strands of spider silk crossing at intervals (and P swatting them grumpily from his path), we scampered up a hill of roots and packed earth, towards the hill overlooking the lake. Behind some trees, and betwixt two, a giant swing rests, and we took turns on the swing, alternately marveling at the canopy of needles on toothpick trees clambering into the sky, or gazing out over the lake, or peering into the depths of the forest.
Then, when even drew nigh, we scampered back towards our canoe to catch the sunset over the firs and hillsides, and watch as the stars salted the twilight and the moon rose in the east, all silver smiles and patient light. Our canoe dipped slightly, bouncing on the buoyant waves as we simply sat, waiting on nothing, captivated in the dawn of night.

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?

Aurora

A little burn trickles, not far from where I sit, writing this now. It is not an ostentatious brook. It was never meant to be. An observant man might have found it sooner; I learned of its existence only a fortnight past. It is not obvious, no, but it is not hidden, either. For those listening, carefully heeding the sussurrus of the wind, it beckons. I found it thus. Perhaps you may, also.

The moon was low, and words were scarce that night, flightier than dreams. A corner lamp flickered with weakening fluorescence, and the empty parchment shone a dim gold on my antique mahogany desk.Through the drawn shades, a whiff of breeze fluttered the violet curtains, and the sound of trees swished outside. I knuckled my forehead, praying for even a paucity of words, even one that sounded... precious. I sighed and pushed myself back in the chair, the front legs raised off the ground as I leaned back, my tenuous grip on the desk's rim allowing my precarious perch.
Abruptly the wind stopped, and there was silence: no owl hru-hru, no kiro-kiro of toads, none of the cautious pips of nighttime birds or the rustling creatures in the underbrush. Straining, I heard but a tiny trickle, as of a faucet left running over dishes. I got up slowly and tip-tapped towards the kitchen, my bare feet cold against the cherry-wood floor.
The sound almost receded as I entered the kitchen, and I knew it was behind me. A cursory glimpse around the home revealed no tap or spigot unplugged. The sound originated from outside. I didn't even bother with my shoes, pushing open the sliding glass door with surreptitious care. The pine needles and softened sticks littering the ground felt natural, familiar under my feet, though I'd never walked such before. Moonlight filtered through the trees, and when I glanced up, I noticed it was lower than I'd expected, and fuller. Indeed, a full moon shone through the glade the color of decaying parchment, an ancient, yellowed moon, old and gnostic in the sky.
I crept down the hillside into the deeper woods behind my plot, surprised at the soundlessness of my feet against the earth. The trickling grew louder. I imagined I must be drawing near, for the sound filled my ears with a half-music, a fluting whistle and a brush of graceful fingers across an aqueous harp. Soon I saw it, nestled among the river-smooth stones in the crook of the hillside. Trees and flowers jigsawed around the burn protectively, and I brushed past, the champagne moon casting a chill lunar light over my shoulder, reflecting in the water as a rippled face, timeless and patient.
It smelled different here, distant, as though this stream was the stuff of memories and I merely a player on a stage of stories. A rustling noise, and I heard a shape across the creek.
"Hello?" I asked, my voice sounding invasive in the calm. A shape darted across the other side, and moonlight displayed a feminine figure briefly, before it passed into the trees, rustling and then silent. I clambered across the water, parting the tall grass and stepping across the burn by means of the great stones.
"Hello?" I called again, curious at this fantastic coincidence. Who else would have found this brook this night? As I stepped onto the other shore, a blinding light struck me, and a loud roar filled my eardrums like a typhoon.
I collapsed, curling into a ball to protect myself from the noises, the lights burning into me, before I realized everything was within my head. What must have been centuries later, or moments, I opened my eyes. A strange lilting voice replaced the hurricane in my head, a sweet and sorrowful song, both - the most beautiful I'd ever heard. Was it that woman I'd seen? Colors filled my vision, and I could see nothing but. Crimsons and greens, violet and cobalt and silver, as though I'd stepped into the northern lights, and stood amidst their ephemeral threads. As the voice sang, the colors changed, like ribbons of melody distorting and contorting with the voice, an intricate dance of color so beautiful, I stayed entranced for another eternity, breathing, drinking, swallowing up that aria of hues, saturated in sound.


To be continued...

Per ardua ad astra

Life is full of pieces, each with eternal implications. Recently, I watched a movie where a picture on the wall says, "All you can take with you is that which you've given away." Each distinct moment of our lives touches everything - a flap of a butterfly's wings effects a tornado elsewhere.  While this aphorism hyperbolizes  cause and effect to some extent, perhaps it merely illustrates the efficacious nature of time.  One of the great conundrums and fancies of fantastic fiction revolves around time travel.  If we interfere with the past, do we alter the future? Or would we simply be accomplishing something in the past already set in place: a recursive destiny?
In truth, it matters not, since time for us mortals is quite linear. Yet, I sit here imagining each interaction and influence my life has produced in each soul surrounding me: a moment of laughter, a touch, a smile, listening ears and eyes, caring and heartfelt prayers, actions of love. Then I fret over each failure, and the consequences of my inaction, failings, cruelties, and frailties. I endeavor not to harbor long on these, as my shame increases until I am overrun.
Now, sitting here in the quiet silence, a steady breeze brushing across the leaves and a drizzle of water dripping from the eaves outside, staring at the would-be stars, imagining them sown across, skyline to hilly skyline, I connect the pieces. I draw constellations in the space of my life, stories of lions and gods, grandmothers in rocking chairs, bears with their tails still attached. Both struggles and creation have forged this sky beneath which I lie.  Each star a person, place, an identity that shews me my place in this land, and guides me home.