Prairie Phoenix

A fierce dawn rises in the east,
Though the sun itself is setting.
Billowing clouds, black above
But brilliant beneath
Pour across the fields and lift
Into the limitless prairie sky.

The roaring sound of death, a furnace wind
Sweeps across the plain,
Leaving behind it nothing
But birth in the dark, scorched earth.
New life rising from the ashes,
Forced into existence by the flames.

A Long Night

With eyes tight shut
I turn on my memory.
Open the boxes
I'd closed in my mind.

Trace with my fingers
The lines of your face.
Search through reflections
And try hard to find

The feelings I had
When I first saw you standing.
Arms strong, in the meadow
With dirt at your feet.

But time lumbers on
Anasthetic, and heartless
Erasing your features
The bitter, the sweet

Are all gone, and I feel such a stifling peace
As I open my eyes and give up, find release.

Helpless Hero

If you were in danger,
I'd run to your side.
I'd hold you, and carry you,
Help you to hide.
I'd fight all your enemies;
Tell you to run.
I'd stand in your place;
Shelter you from the guns.

And Babe, if they hurt you
I'd take up your pain.
Bind all your wounds
Shelter you from the rain.
I'd give you fresh water
If you were in thirst.
I'd feed you and care for you.
Run to you first.

But what can I do, Love
When you're full of tears,
When all of your dangers
Are sadness and fears?
How can I rescue you?
What can I say?
How can a human
Take heart break away?

I'll hold you and whisper
My love, and I'll try
To give you the freedom
To hurt, and to cry.

Oubliette

Here I sit in my cozy hole.
The world above
The earth around
And around
And around
And beneath
And I sit with my thoughts
And the past.

If fear was a color, than
It would be red.
The walls of my hole are
Not red. They are blue.
And Blue is the color
Of freedom.


For I have a secret.
Here in this hole.
In the ground.
I have found
My own soul
And it has no walls
No bars, No dark.
It's cloud free
And I see
The glory of Heaven
And the one thing
That they cannot have.
They cannot have me.

The Pilgrimage: Part 2

If you haven't read Part One, and would like to see a picture of The Umbrella, follow the link before you continue.

The Umbrella floated along on a little lake current, and bobbed just far enough out into the water. It hadn't roamed so far that it wouldn't be able to get back to the edge, but it wasn't so close that just anyone could reach out and grab it. In short, it was in exactly the sort of place that would give an umbrella the most joy.

It floated for several hours in this way, but by the time the rain had stopped, it was gently nudging the reedy shoreline, where moss and sticks and a little boy's lost boot all swirled together looking brown and green and striped red. (Because little boys' boots are supposed to have red stripes, aren't they?)

Just as The Umbrella was beginning to get comfortable, and having quite a cozy chat with the red boot, another of those little winds came up. The Umbrella always felt quite undignified in the wind. In rain and sun and clouds he was proud and noble and strong, but in the wind, he couldn't make himself behave no matter how hard he tried.

This particular wind lifted him up just a bit, so that he floated with three big bumps right up into the grass around the lake, and tipped crazily up on his side, with his black handle sticking out like a big, pointing finger toward the other side of the lake.

What the Umbrella didn't know, but was soon to learn, as I will tell you if you will just be patient, was that hidden under his side was a very small ant den, and in the doorway of that ant den, was one very small ant.

The ant's name was Maximus. That is the sort of name that makes a little fellow either very bold, or very embarrassed, and today, Maximus was feeling embarrassed. He was feeling quite useless, which means that he didn't think he knew how to do anything important. He was not as strong as he might have been, and not as clever as perhaps he should have been, and not as friendly as he could have been, if he weren't so worried about being strong and clever.

When the other ants talked to Maximus, he felt like they were probably being nice to him because he was so little, and his name was Maximus. Or maybe they were really just making fun of him, because he was so little, and his name was Maximus.

In any case, Maximus was just settling into a good bit of "feeling sorry" when he saw, coming out of the sky, a big white...thing. A Thing! A White Thing! It covered up the clouds and blue and the trees and all the big, big people with their big, clumsy feet. It covered everything, in fact, and all the other ants down in the den didn't know anything at all about the White Thing!

Maximus was so excited, he didn't know whether to rush back down the hole and tell everyone, because that would be a very important thing to do, or to rush out into the grass and get a better look at the White Thing, because that would be a very brave thing to do.

In the end, he decided that, with a name like Maximus, brave was the only option. So he gathered all the courage in his six trembling, little legs, and he waved his antennae in an especially heroic manner, and he walked slowly out of the hole, into the grass and out from under The Umbrella.

The Price

Every home must have their cars,
And altars for their movie stars,
Side by side refrigerators...
All the things we might need later.

Rush and hurry, can't be late,
Seething if we have to wait.
Move the money; make it talk.
Wear the latest; walk the walk.

And in our efforts to progress,
We find that we have made a mess.

Taking Flight

We try so hard to bind the universe
To hold it in our hands, and squeeze it dry.
We have to be the one, the best, the first.
We need the world to know that we can fly.

To hunger after knowledge is a gift.
The search for truth is part of who we are.
But when we think we find a bit, we lift
Our foolish, human pride, too high, too far.

For all the vastness built in time and space
Must overwhelm these creatures here below,
Who fight and plan and theorize and place
Their own importance in the search to know.

And just like Icarus, we start to fall,
And find we are mere mortals, after all.

Survival

She looked out over the vastness of the prairie, and felt the future calling her, in tantalizing tones and whispers of promise. To leave the past behind and start again, to feel the mountain breezes on skin that belonged to no one but herself. Heaven!
And in her heart began the idea, the merest fragment of a vision, of running. Running toward the hills, away from the little white farm house, away from responsibility and expectation, that weighed her spirit down. Why shouldn't she fulfill her destiny? Why shouldn't she be able to fly?
In her mind she packed her bags, threw her cares away, and fled. She ran down the sidewalk with never a care in her mind, and she boarded a bus, a plane, a taxi...anything!
Don't they say, “To thine own self be true?” Don't they say that I should be self-fulfilled? Countless people had told her, in story and song, that she should make sure she loved herself first, then she would have love to give other people.
Mesmerized by the hills and the prairie, enchanted by the waving freedom of the flowers around her, she began to walk. Away. Just away. She chanted to herself, in a quiet, rhythmic monotone, “to thine own self be true...to thine own self be true..” until the mantra seemed so true that nothing else could possibly hold truth..or exist...
And as she walked away, with the winds of freedom blowing her dress into billows, tiny feet ran to catch her. A little boy, with stubby legs that caught in the grass, desperately held out a flower, and rubbed at the tears streaming down his cheeks.
He could see the hands pulling his mother away. Gnarled hands. Old hands. Almost as old as the world itself. With blackened claws and soothing, intoxicating, rancid whispers...leading her to the what the world calls freedom.
With the strength of a hero and with the arms of true love, that is true to itself last of all, he grabbed her ankles and held. The forces that pulled her were strong, but the strength in his tiny heart was stronger still, and he held her until she fell, and could look down at him with angry eyes, that gradually became aware of everything around her, and then filled with the same tears.
She held her little son in her arms, and murmured nothings to him, as truth, real truth, seeped from his heart into hers, banishing the evil that had drawn her away.


This is a Thursday Tale, and the picture is from Junest at Deviant Art.