Wind in the wings

The winds are lost, running every which way: chinook, the salmon wind, bursts by in a flicker of silver and white; boreas, boring down south like winter birds, though colder and heartless; diablo and his devil breeze, or zephyr breathing lightly over the hilltops and trees, brushing the flowers. But here, tonight, it's the doldrums for me. Nothing sings with the wind, tonight; nothing dares stir, and my heart aches for motion.

Can I climb the tallest mountain and rest in the lee of the trees, listening as the music of the rain patters all around me? May I run along the riverbed of the mighty river, or leap into the sky and lounge on the clouds over the city at night, watching it sleep and rise and dream again?

The cyclones hurtle in circles; white squalls whip the sea into meringue-pie peaks of waves; the squamish hovers over the fjords like vikings of yore, in sleek, longboat gusts; the euros, full continents lost, carry the rain ever south and east. But tonight, here, along these lamp-lit streets and beneath the evergreens, I throttle time and hold my breath, waiting on eternity.

Where only the wind goes

Cracking open an egg, mixing the pigments and oils until a painting, once conceived in dreams, nips a hole in its shell and breathes in, at once, the first dawn light. Eggshell the clouds scattered over the heavens, yolk the horizon where the denizens of the heavens dwell, whites running over these peaks. Four compass directions from which to choose, and I chose up, higher, where the air thins and silent doldrum-air thrums serenely in my ears, alternating with the swift jet breeze which with freezing chills streams cold fire into my bones. In this icy world, my bones are merely stacked stalagmites shivering up from the powdered floor, icicles the mountain absorbs, glacially slow, into its own.

Here, the world's at peace; no fight bloodies these chill lands, though it is for such high places we struggle, and bravely die - for such a serenity. The prevailing winds subsist as I subside into the mists that run down this infinite slope into nowhere, quick as an osprey. This mountain's an orca of our countryside, breaching, beautiful, frightening in scale.

Have you seen the ice, the frozen lakes, the puzzles of cracked mirrors sitting in our streets? People walking over and under the mirrored nature-glass - which are we? Is this the reflection of the other world, the shadows of above, or are both worlds too frenetic to notice that, looking down, you can share a smile with one like yourself, only shattered into a thousand tiny fissures, and remember we were born, first, from warmth into cold, and we ache for the warmth again. But not I. I fell through that fish-eye lens, that hole between our worlds. Nothing remains in my reflection save a cloudy sky, and that is mine in each land - the silver-grey everlasting.

Some losses were born into the lines on my thumbs and fingertips.

Where only the wind goes, I have followed,

and I know that none save one may meet me here

There are whispers of whispers of names in the wind

The owl calls one, the thrush another, sola
though each snowflake is a kiss hardly given

unique as the next, as the next,

as the next falls and I give in

to a susurrus of surrender unnoticed

in the blizzard - and a triumphal entrance

I wave my palms and the sky falls

it is love, it is love I ascend 

Sunday Night Dreams: August Lands

Rumors drifted as a cool breeze across the burning hearts of the sore dwellers. They stood there, as every eventide, entranced in the prehistoric cannibalism of night, consuming the fire of the heavens. When the sun was swallowed, the thousand-eyed monster would open its eyes, and with countless teeth gnashing from the sea, it stared hungrily down, and the tribe would soon scamper into the hiding places, the caves of the coast, until the angry burning was reborn.

Their backs were stooped, scraggly hairs and hirsute faces merging into chest and arms, like patchy animals with ragged nails and teeth. Dull their eyes, but something, deep in those wells, shone a knowing, a spell of survival that surpassed simple savagery. And this knowing despised something of the searing heats, and their childlike thoughts savored myths of the temperate lands like sweetness on the lips. I remember. There are few of us who remain, when the prophet came, telling of the land behind these tooth-tipped waves and beyond this dome of the sky. He appeared from the wind, and his words invented magic and music these creatures understood not. Still, to this day, the distant children of this people cry, knowing not why, missing pieces of their soul. Listen: his songs fill those holes.

"A distant land beyond these waves, with peaceful nights and cautious days, whose maples sway and leaves gold turn, turn, an endless fall. You've sought it long, and know not for what you're made. These lands call your names. Golden trees with silver leaves, a pleasant breeze and fearless eves, and a love worth taxing days."

Some were bought, some stayed, though the sea was fierce and broad. I, for one, must see this fall land, this endless summer burnt me bronze and black, eyes dark as night and no joy, no joy left for this living fire. So I ran across the waters, we were stronger then, faster, and we chased the sun at night. So fast, so fleet, it never escaped into the monster's maw, we pursued it endlessly. At least, the shores of silver greeted our endless sunset race, and golden trees and singing birds whistled as we landed, the deer grazed unafraid. Even the sky cried in joy, and we cried in fright at its falling tears, hiding under those honeyed boughs.

We stood taller, eyes shone brighter, and we paid the price for fall, and gained a strange knowledge in return.



Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes when you fall, you fly.
~ Neil Gaiman

Married to Words

A leaf in autumn watches it fellows fly, fly away and wonders where it shall fall. As they land jobs, or seed families, planting trees, my leaf gazes solemnly. The wind brushes by, soft as kissing butterflies, and still my leaf sticks on branches thick, rooted. When doth its chance come nigh, that it may join to spinning life or journey lands far and wide, afore it lose all leaves beside?
A baby bird must someday try - else married to the words, at least invent a life. And on these winds and in these times, I sigh and s'pose, I'm married to the words.