Another human life washes in with the
Cold confusion of the misty universal tides.
Her infant body has been broken over the spines of
The ocean’s rocky protrusions, burned by the brine,
And beached on the sandy illusion of safety.
Shadows and dust are all that she may be,
A complex driftwood husk, Ash or Elm, lifeless until
The moment she breathes her first earthen breaths.
Her skin seethes hot with life, and is fused with color.
Her thoughts begin to analyze, and to imagine.
She witnesses the clockwork strife of things.
When she draws the first longing sip from her
Generation’s naked breast, she begins to understand all the rest.
She is exposed and sensitive, a chickadee with her mouth ajar.
She is a child who abides only by the moon-tides.
She sleeps at night and awaits the break of dawn,
Hungry to witness the human fray that preys on what is natural.
Courage becomes her only hope along her journey through life.
In the sky suspended on high, she finds her father,
Smiling from the iridescent infinity of space and time.
Immersed in the wonder of such beautiful things, she pauses,
Then begins to travel again, to wonder and ask, “Why?”
When she meets the lonely sundered woods.
The forest has had its defenses breached;
Slowly, utterly, it shrinks and then falters.
In her lifetime, the wilderness mounts its final resistance;
It is folding and buckling, churning and chuckling,
At the slash-and-burn persistence of the greatest predator.
The child continues on, and finds her mother among the desolation
That is in all the ages and in all of the places on this Earth.
With the wisdom of the sages, Mother gives consolation,
Meaning to the isolation, all life now stripped of what it was once worth.
On the damp soil that lies beneath her feet and
In the quiet shelter within the shade of the trees,
She finds solace in Father’s timeless embrace,
And courage in Mother’s nurturing whispers.
She has become a woman now, and with pride and
Intent, she walks and strides to the rhythm of the wind.
Her shadow is the darkness that creeps across the falling leaves,
That bluster past us in frightening, frigid blasts.
In the short moments between the shifting dissonance of
Seasons and societies, ages and phases,
In the time it takes for our ashes to become oaks,
She has found her home, her heart, and her reasons.
All that this Earth once was is now fleeting,
Save our remembrance of the smell of the endless sea,
The pang of salty brine, and the cool turquoise breeze.
Our woman watches and waits and we take the bait.
Above the splashing waters and the groaning waves,
She waves her reverent farewell to us and notices
The color when it drains from our drooping faces.
Death relaxes each of our hallowed forms in time,
And lays us first to bake and broil beneath the sun,
Somewhere among the universe of our forlorn things.
Then the rope slips and the knots come undone –
She lets us make our plunge back into the sea of fire.
Her watchful face wavers and then fades into the light.
Our lives vanish beneath the waves.
Tyler "Hrafn" Noyes