I
I was to tread the land before I died,
explore the leaves that float above
only to float ontop my stream.
Before I died I was to climb
the boundary banks which were my crib,
explore the sticks, explore the sand
before glittering currents softened them
and laid them at my feet to lie on.
I was to taste the fuzzy peach,
bathed with sunrise, still on the tree,
firm and sweet between my teeth,
warm, or so the whispers say,
before I died and drifted away.
I was to travel for a while,
tiptoe over countryside,
I was to see strange creatures play
and reach the ocean ‘fore I died.
II
“I will surely do it tomorrow.”
This phrase has crossed my lips so many a time
that the pond this glistening river empties into
is fouled with its presence,
mucked so no creature rests nor washes at its shore.
My soul grows heavy whenever I visit,
a stone in my chest like the stones on the shore,
gritty, pockmarked, unsmooth stones
that weigh heavy in hand and rough in hand,
scraping skin from the eager fingers
of the child who finds it.
“Tomorrow” is a lame excuse of a knotted tongue,
a brain so long entangled in freedom’s net
that it forgot its encagement and grew over the wires,
like skin over an unpulled splinter,
the splinter loosed in a bowl of warm water
my glistening river runs chilled as I sleep.
III
Sunbeam soaked section of stream
beneath the sky,
a small reprieve from shady trees,
my sitting spot in the early noon,
and whenever the moon is round and bright,
pulling my soul upward with slender fingers,
throwing me into the air to fly.
Yet I fall back to my little stream
crashing through the shady trees
and landing on a lillypad,
pulled by currents to the pond.
Sitting ‘lone in ugly water,
I was to crawl before I fly,
but my fingers never made it to shore
‘fore I was forced to close my eyes again
and dream of peaches golden high.
IV
Once I dreamed of ne'erending oceans,
and sunshine peaches that hung high on trees,
so high I’d have to climb
and feel the roughness of tree under my foot.
Once I thought to travel the world,
to tiptoe over grasses wild, flowers wild,
and dirt trails that lead I know not where.
This passion I had inside my brain,
my brain so warped was not my own,
twisted in threads that hung like hair,
I was misguided within myself.
In this still pond that is my bed,
searching eyes upward towards the sky,
sky blue like this water here,
what use have I for sticks and sand,
gritty sand untouched by river?
What use have I for those strange things
that rest now outside my reach?
3-3-15
Lilly Stuart
:)
