evening

My Year of Rest and Relaxation

Ziplining around the library over displays and bookshelves. Things are getting a little knocked over but I’m not really worried about it.

We’re trying to work with some birds, but I encourage 2 red-and-black birds that are in my bag to fly away.

1 male and 1 female black swallowtail butterfly in the enclosure ready for release. Was she damaged in captivity?

B and I are having moments together. We yearn to be close. We’re outside in the snow. We were talking about everyone trying to run to see who’s the fastest. When the lights go out, I see an elaborate and magical constellation in the sky. It looks like an early cave painting of a human but it’s made of stars. It glows brightly and stars are twinkling around it seems like they’re swirling about the constellation. Everyone is gazing at it in awe. A is acting resentful and jealous. There’s no way to make him feel better. I’m glad when he’s gone.

Now the trees are green and it’s summery. Somehow we get a closer view, peeking through some trees. It’s an illuminated statue covered in red and white lights. Some are twinkling. B stands right behind me and lays his hands on my arms. When I lean a little into him he’s solid behind me. I feel the full shape of his torso along my backside. I wish I could be there forever.

Climbing around some mountain, exploring ancient trails, found a real cool cave carved into the side of the mountain. It goes in deep

Going up in an elevator. Someone’s riding up with me on the outside. She looks like she knows what she’s doing and having fun. Maybe it’s lower gravity because I can kind of jump out and over the elevator, land on a table with my chair and sit above someone who doesn’t seem surprised.

Office building. Exploring empty offices but there’s still some that are occupied. I go in frequently for some appointment and if you know you know.

Now the heart-leaves of the birch are rinsed of old sunshine and the dust of summer days – when the harvest moon rose late at night, burning coolly through fevered branches, and the wind rustled in its dry crown. Oh, those nights, abundant with hope and words gentle as caresses. There they hung, covered in dust, every aching, wrecked promise now swept away towards the shores of nothingness. The absentminded city meets blank stares as it dreams in the soft evening breeze. It can’t understand the thirst of yellow fields, but stones and people can also drink and breathe the late sweetness of autumn. So fall, little droplets, onto our hearts, release summer’s scent from the wet hedges, a new freedom like surmounted pain – heavy dreams loosen their hold, and it’s as if all bad things break when the good rain comes.

I was a cobbler in the house of the Gods.  It took a lot of anonymous people  to make the mountain what it was.  I did not make swords, axes, or bolts  of lightning. I stretched leather until  it fit comfortably on the feet of the divine.   I made sandals for the Champion of War.  I did my work, then went home. I never  fought in His campaigns, but the skulls  that were crushed beneath his heel sometimes  made a sound. It was not like thunder.  It was quiet. Dead leaves.  My name. Wind through dry grasses.