etreides
Fitting.
Even after the holiday.
Even after the wine, and the meat,
And the crispy-flaked, All American
Apple pie;
The uniform.
Like a well-worn leather glove,
Perfectly, impossibly pressed.
Like a rocketship on its way to Mars,
I move at escape velocity,
Ricocheting off of stars
At supersonic speeds -
My contact with them is brief,
Momentary, before I am flung
By my own momentum
Like a child spinning around a flagpole,
Back into the dark, airy blanket of space,
And onward to the next destination.
With such lack of presence,
I am stoic and alone;
Loneliness, however, never sets a foot
Across the threshold of my subconscious,
For it is alive, awakened to the presence
Of that from whence it came;
In these heavens,
My synapses surge as the memories
That had dulled from thunderous existence
Into static blips, unnoticeable,
Return once again to their former state.
I lay amidst the stardust,
My eyelids growing heavy as they prepare to seal
Me into sleep, before the far away lights
Slide out of view, and I disappear.
You were born in Spring
They said
Which is why you always see
The beginnings of the world,
The dawns of the days,
The buds and blossoms
Even amidst a plain of thorny weeds,
Or hiding in the bogs of darkened marshland.
Yours is not the power to command
Yours is not the power of stoic rigidity
Yours is the wind,
The power to dance amidst the storms
That drive others to hide,
Fearful of the thunder and lightning,
The music of the heavens,
That sing of life being poured anew into the Earth,
Whose golden-haired daughter's naivete
Birthed the autumn drought and winter chill,
Before we had come to know,
Or perhaps recollect,
What beauty truly was.
So dance in the pools of water,
Your shirt, wrapped and clinging to your skin,
Heavy with the Ocean's tears,
Happy, sad, and bittersweet,
And celebrate the recollection of unity
As his wisdom seeps from your vision
Landing lightly on your lips,
Drawing others, enveloped in the creation and upholding
Of the elements they claim opposed,
When they are but linked,
Into the clear vision of your direction,
Reminding them of the beauty
That fills the cracks
Which hold their focus,
If only they cease, and take a closer look.
Staunch as an automaton, with all
The intelligence of someone truly living,
You stood among the ranks,
Serving as you best could,
For reasons only you could justify at the time,
Searching for your path among the thousands
That would or had lay down their lives
In the only way we've yet to accept
As a valid means of standing in support
Of an icon that we blindly hold in glory,
Discounting opposition,
Whilst shunning those who might
Stand firm against the very vices
We would address and shun if held
Or displayed by others.
Was it merely survival mechanism
That let you wrap your thoughtful mind
Within the boundaries of your heart,
Such that neither functioned,
Such that you might act upon the word
Of one who lived to fight another day,
Using hands other than their own,
Directing bodies in the games of chess
Played with living pawns
Who might survive the journey,
Cross the board,
And themselves become
A coveted king?
Here, in the fleeting moments of now,
Having collected the debris of time gone by,
I stand, gazing at the reflection of one
Who is not who I was or am or will
Be again in the pool of eternity.
Within me, the cracks of darkness expand
Outward from their core,
Structuring the illusion of a presence
With soldered fragments the past
Has only had time to collect and hand off
Before Time has come
And demanded new beginning.
And there upon the lands they formed
Four walls, and gates that proudly stood,
Claiming: "This land is ours, secured
Under the sacrament of He who lives
On high. But by and by
They blindly found themselves
In want of food, for all they grew was coin,
And to the ones who lived without made plea
That they might share with them their own bounty.
Not through penitent kindness did they share,
Those dubbed godless, savage, uncivilized,
But out of simple humanity, long forgotten
In the tides that separated old from new,
Natural bronze from crafted steel.
Yet to no such avail, this kindness given,
But treated apprehensively, as guile.
Retribution was all but undeserved
In the minds of those who quickly, having fed,
Thought best the hand that fed them to be dead.
Along the sand
The imprint of your footprints
Still remains,
Buried like the treasures of the dune,
Visible only to those
Who take the time
To expand their sight
From the day to day,
And notice:
One so beautiful as you,
One so lightly treading the sand,
Impacting the earth gently,
Tracing steps that have been
Walked before,
Parallel perpendiculars,
Themselves visible
Only to those
Who take the time
To remember,
One other,
One another.
As the ocean gently
Casts its tendrils about
Your echo,
Implanting your footprints
Into the memory of the earth,
Lips mnemonically turn upright,
Somewhere, tears flow
Downward,
Meeting smiles espoused
From loving memories,
Implanting remembrance
Of all the joys
Of the days spent,
The hours walked,
The eternities passed,
When we strolled along in happy company,
Implanting footprints on the beach.
Earnestly, I used to be
Surrounded completely,
Encompassed in a way I only
Ever though possible within
The boundaries of storybooks.
You looked and watched,
But never judged, ever
Being a second sight for me,
A pair of eyes when mine
Would frolic about the world
In their frivolous fashion,
An extra hop in my step
When my legs would
Have normally tripped
Over themselves,
A voice in the back
Of my head reminding me
Not to lose patience;
I had nowhere to truly be,
Nowhere I needed to go;
Reminding me that all
I had to do, was nothing,
For that was all
Any of us
Could ever hope
To truly amount to,
At the time
Of the dust.
Surrounding, a cluster of trees,
Fat from the feast that lay beneath their roots,
Perpetuating the cycle of life:
Sustained, they grow,
Sustained, they sustain,
Conscious or unconscious,
Who can tell?
In their limited view, they possess the wisdom
To ever continue to reach for the heavens,
Which in turn allows those that lie
Beneath them, waking or otherwise,
To do the same.
Indifference, perhaps,
Or anger at an event;
Sadness makes its appearance another way,
Biting the lip, tracing
A line from one end of the cheek to the other,
Extending the blinds to allow the rain in,
In hopes to wash away itself,
Leaving only the bitter sting of memory
Branded by loss,
An sharp yet subtle, icy throb
Against the presently revised
Moments of living history,
Shivering faintly on the surface of the grey
Matter of the brain.
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