Until I Fly

[ellyssian]

Until I Fly
by Everett A Warren

June 3, 2006

The wind rustles the leaves in the trees and I listen:
Silence, first, then the shimmer and shake,
through which a whispering tale gradually appears;
and I feel the meadow growing around me as I await the next word,
caught up in the story and carried with the Western Wind.

The forest bends with the breeze and, carried so, I dance with the leaves.

Memory, warn the crows, and I heed them not and close my eyes,
feeling the kiss of oak and maple, curling through sycamore,
fragrant with hemlock and pine, scents of the here and now,
the Eastern Wood I see no longer, remembering only where I have been:
a Western Shore tall with redwood and fir: the cry of the gull over Pacific Waves.

A story of deserts and thirsts unquenchable, whipped into a tempest
with the grains of sand, scorched across miles and miles of unforgiving land.
Swept along mountains snowy peaks, spine of the world exposed for all to see,
and then down, down across endless plains, whirling and twirling in spiraling form,
until the forest bends with the breeze and, carried so, I dance with the leaves.

Memory, warn the crows, and I watch the winds sweep into the meadows of my home,
find me there, and carry me along, whispering of the past that is now mine;
Memory, warn the crows, and, carried so, I dance with the leaves
until I fly over the Eastern Shore – the waves churning and flowing, reaching out to me.

And I remember now, taste the salt spray on my lips, as I dive into the depths
swimming for the Northern Sea until I fly once more.

Copyright (c) 2006 Everett Ambrose Warren

Comments

[patrixa.livejournal.com]

This is wonderful work, no matter how one looks at it: style, language, mood --it is perfect. Tell me why wont you send this to, oh, say, The New Yorker, The Audubon Society, any other magazine? Why do I push on this topic? Because what you say enriches your readers and helps us understand our own moods, expectations and cam make us think/see life in new ways.