Fire has ravaged the landscape,
painting it black with death.
But from the turgid cloud escapes
a moisture laden breath,
Then on its heels a downpour rains
from Heaven’s laden breast.
And when sunlight bathes the plains,
a little seedling manifests.
In vain I fumble for a metaphor
that adequately frames
how impossible it is to ignore
your heart-stopping name.
In a great hall, the wealth of which
will not again be witnessed
for a thousand epochs of man,
I was brought on my knees
before a King who bore down on me
His hand, and upon it
a Divine Seal of Authority
that scattered my will.
.
“Speak they name, as it was granted
to you by He Who Is.”
Came the impelling command,
each word shaking my bones.
.
“I am the Servant of Cypris;
She who is the Dawnstar
and keeper of Lovers tender
farewells from spying eyes.
.
I am the Houri of My Lady
who traces my number
across a jewel encrusted garb
blacker than Niobe’s.
.
I am the Monodist of Pollux,
who waits with me until
She returns from Apollo’s
Requiem in the West.”
.
So said I, in surrendered reply
to the King of the Chosen;
who bade me craft for Him a chalice
and fill it with my tears.
Such was it, that even Lucifer
had himself no equal
in beauty or potency to commend
to our own lips.
The high outcrops punctuate the fields of rice,
brown like the skin of the farmer and his wife
whose ancestors slept, high in those lofty peaks,
surrounded by the white clouds and the eagles -
and it is their cries that echo from the cliffs
to mingle with the slosh of the wide river,
where the fisherman balances impossibly
on his long raft and casts out his well worn net -
the silver fish leap and thrash until droplets
fill the air and refract the rays of the sun,
until a thousand little rainbows, explode.
Under yellow sandstone arches
and an ocean-blue sky,
I listen to the bell organ fill the courtyard
and my mind.
On wings that span a full ten feet
the Albatross doth soar
above the depths that yearn to greet
him to its murky floor.
The Wind’s a fickle mistress
for this Captain of the air,
but he knows that nothing of success
comes by taking too much care.
The Tiger’s eyes ignite the night
like two more orange moons,
they search to quench his appetite
through forests, plains and dunes.
His countenance is as regal
as the countless those who fear
him more than bear or wolf or eagle,
lest one night they disappear.
A year of Time has vanished,
and I have not slept.
Mirror, Mirror, I have aged for both of us,
while the ages pass you by.
A great sleep wells up inside me,
its waves crashing over my eyes
like the shores of the Stygian sea
whose waters are avoided by the wise.
Even breathing becomes laborious
and yawning only forces more
draught into my mouth, nauseous
and begging me to the floor.
The Crow is black as charcoal burnt
by the fiercest summer blaze;
His cry imbued with curses learnt
from the Devil’s beady gaze.
The Sun is torment to his hue,
as it desiccates the land -
but for him a boon of rotting tissue
from that which could not fly from sand.
