Random provocations from a digital scribe.
As child in late winter, I would walk along the snow banks and watch the fallen snow dissolve into puddles. In my mind I made them kingdoms. Islands of ice adrift in a warming sea. Filled with thousands of tiny souls watching as their world dissolved. I imagined I was one of them struggling to comprehend. I felt their loss and sense of confusion. The things they once relied on as solid and fixed were now fluid and tenuous.
I mourned for them because I could not mourn for me.
We offer ourselves In pieces, Carefully portioned. Never fully whole. We learned to tell stories Because we had to, Hid ourselves In fictions Every story and poem, An offering, Another note Passed on streams of light. We read each other, Across that distance Finding meaning in the work.
I was spiritual, once. Almost holy Felt the presence of god, Offered prayers and praise, But his flock was poisoned Bent and broken Under a twisted theology That glorified their pain. So I judged the tree By its rotting fruit And walked the other way.
This was meant for the vss365 prompt today (spiritual), but my schedule was chaos so I didn't get it posted earlier. I will post it here instead.
I think of you in the early hours, When the sun still lingers, Hidden under the horizon, Rising on tendrils of light, Ribbons, orange and yellow, Shimmering on the edge Of a still-dark sky When I would turn to find Your eyes on me, A smile on your lips, A hint of untold possibilities A million moments stolen, On the edge between Day and night, You and I. But the sun keeps coming, Its harsh light, a reminder That this is but a dream, fleeting, Built of fragile shadows Clinging to a fading world Unwilling to let go.
Luck like suffering Is too often a matter of comparison. I have more than many, less than some. Still, the long days drag on And the short days fade too fast. Long and short, we journey on Do the best we can Tend to our hearts and hopes, Searching for joy even in the darkest places. This, no great wisdom, Just a summation of a life still lived.
Our failures are plenty, We built a world not in our image, An idol to a devouring leviathan, Pretending it is what we wanted, Wondering at our sense of loss. This, though, not the end, Voices still speak truth, And leviathans tremble In the face of hope.
I summoned the courage, asked her out, A first time for everything She just smiled, shook her head And said she was thinking of becoming a nun. Now, I lay on my back in the middle of field, Watching the drifting stars, The sound of the party still close by. Trying, so hard, to disappear.
Years later, I would hold her in my arms, She was no nun, But, even then, it was just a moment, A drifting of two souls in space, Occasionally passing, never connecting.
It is okay to be finite. Acknowledge your limits. Set your space. There is no medal For mourning, No treasure for fear, There is only this world, Flawed and broken, Beautiful and strange, Filled with sorrow, Infinite in its hope. There is only you, Only me, We do not live forever, Our time, so precious. Savor it. Do not bow to those Who demand attention. Our days worth too much To waste on fools and fears We cannot master Nor control.
I used to plan in decades, Now I plan in minutes, Each moment splinters A thousand futures, Each darker than the last. I watch them march Madmen and fools, Progenitors of a fallen species, Headed for the cliff, Over the edge Into nothing. Justice or retribution, I know not which. And here we sit, At the end of an age, Sharing stories of a brighter time Facing a “thousand-year night.”
Note: Another post from the vss365 prompt that went long. I included the final line from Alas, Babylon in the piece because it fit so well.
It gets harder Worn and damaged, Pays the price, Of past mistakes, In blood and tears, I would tell you not to, But without it, There is nothing Left between us.