Grey: forest water and abandoned sails
You will come in ships full of coffee and cloth bearing false white flags of surrender only to land and melt into the sharp resinous conifers, shooting the birds up into the fresher higher canopy where none can catch; only watch helplessly as feathers rise, and song is keening like your soul just ripped the mast and tore to ground. You have become the damp mist across virgin cheek cold from the night and fresh from sleep, roused by butterfly cry and you take nothing here.
This is not where you hunt. This is not where you take. This is not your dream, if you can be said to know a dream of your own. Clouded by salt pork and canned water, any land is like apricots fuming gently in the warm summer sun. Take that arrow into the dark again, into the woods where the needles grab at your jodhpurs and rip at your arms. Here you will find cover to watch the unfolding, the story in the clearing, the courage that will rip your tight chest wide open. No blood, no blood of your own here. Enough will come. Enough will follow. Sit in your shadows and watch fierce eyes burn at the edges and fists break through the curious smoke of an early morning burn pile.
It will never taste as rangy as this again, like wild cougar on a spit at the beach. It will never smell like this again, like the acrid after-shock of winter. Still your beating heart, wear your enemy closer than yourself. Hold it still, hold it close and never breath- the humus underfoot will suck you in with its rich underground pull. Set your heart out on the sun-warmed rock because it no longer belongs to you.
She'll save half a peach for you. That is all. Restless like the pulling of the ocean, like a great tidal reef she'll draw you like a leaf into gutter. She has no idea of the power she has and it's best this way, her fumbling forward into light, carrying you with her, unaware of the full weight of you. Her force is rapid like waterfalls and you can't retreat. Not now. Not again. She'll not see the shimmering past, the dark tapestry of fear and loathing that once shadowed your skin. She's too fast, too complete to feel the small nicks; the small divots taken from your faith by lesser beings.
The great field of blue camass lilies calls like water to a sailor but you must wait for her hand. She'll take you across true like her father might have bade her do if he weren't already dead. Don't speak yet. Don't break the ferry's spell. Cross the water and taste the electric air. She's wild with it, in her hair, her skin, and it's you.
It's you.
This is not where you hunt. This is not where you take. This is not your dream, if you can be said to know a dream of your own. Clouded by salt pork and canned water, any land is like apricots fuming gently in the warm summer sun. Take that arrow into the dark again, into the woods where the needles grab at your jodhpurs and rip at your arms. Here you will find cover to watch the unfolding, the story in the clearing, the courage that will rip your tight chest wide open. No blood, no blood of your own here. Enough will come. Enough will follow. Sit in your shadows and watch fierce eyes burn at the edges and fists break through the curious smoke of an early morning burn pile.
It will never taste as rangy as this again, like wild cougar on a spit at the beach. It will never smell like this again, like the acrid after-shock of winter. Still your beating heart, wear your enemy closer than yourself. Hold it still, hold it close and never breath- the humus underfoot will suck you in with its rich underground pull. Set your heart out on the sun-warmed rock because it no longer belongs to you.
She'll save half a peach for you. That is all. Restless like the pulling of the ocean, like a great tidal reef she'll draw you like a leaf into gutter. She has no idea of the power she has and it's best this way, her fumbling forward into light, carrying you with her, unaware of the full weight of you. Her force is rapid like waterfalls and you can't retreat. Not now. Not again. She'll not see the shimmering past, the dark tapestry of fear and loathing that once shadowed your skin. She's too fast, too complete to feel the small nicks; the small divots taken from your faith by lesser beings.
The great field of blue camass lilies calls like water to a sailor but you must wait for her hand. She'll take you across true like her father might have bade her do if he weren't already dead. Don't speak yet. Don't break the ferry's spell. Cross the water and taste the electric air. She's wild with it, in her hair, her skin, and it's you.
It's you.