Danger: Mud Slides & Icy WatersHer majesty towers,
as royalty often does, surveilling, calculating, inside her rocky, ice-capped skull. “Do not step on empty water,” she warns, “For drowning on air is the worst way to go.” And still footsteps. Spiny trees stand erect like British soldiers at the gates of Buckingham, only the wind can stir them, rustling their hair. Her majesty’s army. The only rebel is the ocean, that vast, icy tundra of shivering movement. Like a wildfire beyond containment. Like a teenage runaway. “Do not board the boat,” she warns again, “or you will drift until lines crisscross into circles and your spirit turns to dust.” And you, you sit on the horizon teasing me with afternoon sunshine only to dip below when darkness falls. So I, the Princess of Mud, pluck the stars like apples, marveling at their plumpness, quietly nibbling at their crispness, until light disappears. Still I cannot find you, not even on the moon. Only when I drift to sleep do you tease me with your golden rays. And her majesty is trembling with earthquakes and avalanches. “Do not retrace your own muddy tracks, for they’ve already been washed by the swiftness of an ocean wave.” Frozen in place A fossil. Until you, the archeologist, uncovers me and remembers that light is not created but passed from one thing to another. |