Treehouse Above the Clouds

I drive along the sallow, sagging marshes to a place sunk in the ocean on a mountain lifted by pines and the strange dependability of time, who stands still for no one except those who walk here.

This place is not somber but ever rejoicing in its stillness as a heavy breeze blows a salted fog through the trees who stand shameless and unabashed in their angular, leafy loyalty, protecting the shadows and the light as equals. It is here where I walk to spend time with the one who is always here and never there, always with me wherever I go and seldom apart from this foggy bog. His mystery is familiar and foreign, just as each crunch leaves a unique tone and timbre in this quiet place, very much alive, but filled with those subtle rhythms who are always right on time.

You, as each bird swoops low through this grey cover, are ever punctual and ever silent, translucent, and honest.

There is a Spirit here who strolls by my side, lurking just at the corner of my sight, ever present and out of reach, forever following and never leading, but wishing me toward his reach.

Many a journey this long would tire me, but this grey ash is as friendly as it is fierce, and the moss softens this space from any harms as tiny creatures teem in their happy space near the beach. No amount of tall grass or sinking stream could tear me away, and as it were, neither could it you.

You are the spirit who strolls by my side, lurking just at the corner of my sight. You grow closer to me and weave yourself around my warm form, leading me onward

Onward and upward to a cliff made from pointed trunks and roots of stone to a place where the waves are crashing into their own ocean of fog, where grasses and aged rock churn into a blue portal where none can enter, and we can only watch

And I can only enjoy here that is is where you are able to whisper to me the only things I need hear for another year yet, enough to power me around the world and, at long last, back this place, where I may hear your voice once more

“You are enough”

For this I know, but it is from you a gift sweeter than all the stars as it it you who held my heart when you soared up to them, and it is your rendering that I cannot forget

And so you are the spirit who strolls by my side, lurking just at the corner of my sight, ever present and out of reach, forever following and never leading, but watching carefully over me to all the places I journey, never apart from me, but your voice always here, until

This glacier is refreshingly lonely. I do not want to be near anyone, or anything, or anywhere who will fill my head with thoughts of their own all the time and leave no room for me to breathe. It’s snowing here, and it breaks up in sparks the current which has been flowing in my brain, closing a coiled loop of you and him and her and them and they who are always just too concerned with themselves, and never I, or here, or there, or when.

There are rivers cutting through rock unabashed, without question of how they feel or if this is going too far, and it is here that I realize I am they. It is not mine to question if where I am is taking up all this flowing, flowering space, is is their job to make way.

Get out of my glacier and away from my ice, this is where I go to be away from all the freezing frost you all have been blowing in my direction, and I’m sick of you melting all my snow.

There are trees with green leaves here poking through the drifts, and it is warmer here than when I knew you. The trees never question why I am here or why I don’t need you, or how, and where, I will be all alone and be at one with myself.

‪I didn’t want to steal your soul ‬

This wall moves for no one

It blocks the shadow of a cold moon after dawn, in this foreign place where the moors are ashy blue

And there is no you

There is only he, the soul ashamed of his body

In pursuit of lost objects

This living wall moves for no one

His soul will pass through a sieve that only I can see

And to another, waiting for him across the strange stubble field

This loving wall moves for no one

Behind the fog is a ring of stilted lights, glimmering ever so carefully, as not to disturb the mist who guards them. Perhaps it is here you lay, dearest one, among the fallen lights, guarding yourself behind these hollow clouds.

 Perhaps it is here that I find you, moved from my sight.

 There is a lifetime of memories untouched, unloved, which unravel in a smoke that curls in wisps around my fingertips. The more I twist, the more fades this woeful wisp, desperate to escape a life before it is lived.

 I fear for you, hiding from the life giving lights beyond the clouds, for I know their glow still lies within you, dimming, panting, wishing to warm a thousand souls. Not even the dark face of our noble moon could hide the flicker’s fervent hope to fan a fire you could not freeze.

 Perhaps it will be here that I find you, moved from my sight.

 How could I live without you, when you cannot live with yourself? Drift into being, troubled one, if not for you, then for me, and raise your eyes from the mist-torn puddles that seek purchase over stumbling green knolls, and look upon the cliffs you know.

 Perhaps it is here that I find you, moved from my sight.

 I am your guardian, your warrior against the shadows that loom in your head and your heart to challenge the spirit unfailing, unflailing, blind and unknowing of its innocence, the pale pink ember who challenges a blue-black ice. I carry with me a looking glass only as strong as your coldest fear, enough to find you once, but perhaps not again, before it is melted with the winter rains.

 Perhaps this will be how I find you, moved from my sight.

 Do not fear me, resembling the shadows that whisper their simpering songs in your ear at dusk, as the tide rolls in to beg these eroded rocks for mercy. My form is not dark as the ice, but shallow as the foam, with eyes of purifying flame that will thrust you from your damp shell and into the suns you know.

 Perhaps it is here that I find you, moved from my sight.

 How dare you force me to abandon you, dearest one, a mistake I shall not make again, not for all the storms at sea will I let your spirit crash against these frozen rocks, and not again will I be able to draw you out, shards melting from your lungs, your chest alight.

 Beauty lives within you, seeking to bloom from the pure soils of fire, that you placed long ago, that I so carefully defend.

No flash of light under thick thunder clouds could replace your face at night.

I trail along the hill that buffets a brutal breeze from the worn buildings, and stroke the leaves that droop wetly from above. Each leaf is silk beneath my cold hands, as smooth as the memories melt behind my brow, slipping deeper and deeper as I fall asleep, colder still.

The night that time stood still, that only the skies obeyed the many minutes, was the night in which your wings of raven-black feathers obscured all the crackling bolts.

No flash of light under thick thunder clouds could replace your face at night.

I have no feathers from that night left to grasp, only a memory hiding in thin patterned branches that paint a trick on the stubble field, the same lines as your wings.

As I sneak through the silent pelting, my ears convince me that you are flying close, out of sight, but never out of mind, until I see no leaves flapping out of view, no splatter settling on straining trunks, only happy, muddy clouds showering their winter storms.

No flash of light under thick thunder clouds could replace your face at night.

Those wings were warm once, fired with the light of summer sundowns in their bright white shine on glossy black plumage, enclosing the chosen when the rain stops, the sun casts blood-red light on shallow walls, and the moon makes her move to reclaim this peaceful night, against twilight which knew no master.

No flash of light under thick thunder clouds could replace your face at night.

This slope casts a fresh waft of clover back toward my waiting face, and but for a moment it is the sound of relaxed ebony spans outstretched. It was never a thought that wings could spread this far around another and remain untouched by a cold uncertainty of heart, and yet there they were, stretched so elegantly, only for me.

No flash of light under thick thunder clouds could replace your face at night.

It is a heart’s fire that rests at the dying of day, saved for the work of somber purple and blue plumes, deep as the waters run today, which shall shield me every night, until the last, when the stars watch a dream drift into wisps, and the wings give their release.

At each end of the maze, there is one of you.

In these gold-gilded grasses weaves a work of both scales, never balanced, always tilting. The closer you walk the farther they tip, your trail through the tulips disturbed by the subtle sound of silver-on-silver.

At each end of the maze, there is one of you.

The first passes a pond whose waves sparkle with each resounding step; the second passes a stream whose current rushes faster and faster, for one moves the lever, and one tips the left scale. I grasp the tool beyond your sight, above the walls of green.

At each end of the maze, there is one of you.

This work of reeds is temporary, you consider: first is the judge, and the second the spirit, and one must make to remove the masks, placed long ago. I am perched in a willow, ever watching, willing one to try.

At each end of the maze, there is one of you.

The pink clouds loom on your pupils as the second takes flight, the hedges blurring underfoot, until they reach the first. Here I sit, hidden by twilight, ever curious, ever the champion of your pursuits, the remover of painted visages.

At one end of the maze, there are two of you.

When the clouds clear into dusk, there is no lingering labyrinth, only a garden with the same gold-gilded grasses, gentler. The scales were not what they appear, sitting balanced on the still waves of the fountain, where the two facades float silently.

At neither end of the maze, there are two of you.

This place exists in reality, as tranquil daydreams should.

You blaze my heart upon its shell, never dwelling, the flames only swelling.

 You will melt the magic lake upon which I skate. With each turn of toe, the snow falls and frosts the world to white.

 Each biting flake is a welcome spark of happiness, lit upon the base of my skull to flicker through my eyes as I spin to and fro, watering the friendly cold.

 You blaze my heart upon its shell, never dwelling, the flames only swelling.

 I must look every bit the spinning spool of gold to no one in particular, except the casual passerby on the sodden path that overlooks my mirrored dancing floor.

 These blades could cut my fiercest foe, my belabored footwork building aches and pains that will follow me home tonight. These feelings of dis-belonging and rooted wrongness trail a fire down my spine which coils the springs in my heart and head.

 You blaze my heart upon its shell, never dwelling, the flames only swelling.

 Relentlessly craving their release, my feet flex to stifle the heat with the sharp promises of a spangled winter storm, tethering me to this frozen pond until they are appeased.

 It seems I will never stop dancing, until the blowing snow clears for just a second, to show your back to me as you walk away. For countless drifts that fell from frozen sky, you watched me in secret, shrouded in a frosted camouflage.

This is not an unfeeling forest floor

Paved with roots and fallen leaves

Tonight it is an darting dance floor

Lain with shining panels in elegant lines

Tonight is not a dream

Slipping out of my head and bed at dawn

This is a work of all the rain the clouds could spare

Under twinkling drops that flash the solemn stars

This is not a fight against the bonds of oak

Capturing us in branches that block the moon

Tonight these twists and turns carry our feet

Every step silent, demanding damp songs

For these are not sweeps of sadness

Mourning their swift and soon departure

Tonight this is a twinkling never fading

Guarded by the downpour under flickering fame

Each branch is eternal here

There is a stretch at the end of the sandbar

           Where the rocks behind block the ocean from the boardwalk

                       And the ocean fills two sides of my sight

 I cannot walk away without seeing the shore I’ve seen before.

 Each low lap of sea licks behind my eyes, where you reside, living every moment which might have been.

 Along this tranquil coast far in the north did you hold a ring in the tall salt-grass which switched my calves in the blue hour of slow-watching quiet, for all the stars paused, waiting for me to sail away home.

 Swathed in the singing breeze did you let me reach into your chest, grasping you by the very soul bound to your body, and held it up to glow against my own in the evening light.

        Where the ocean fills two sides of my sight, the twilight lurks dancing.

 Before this beach did I dream of faraway times, a void at my own command, looming happier in the distance than I was across the waves, in a thirsty place.

Many miles from here did I fly to see your smiling face, just south of my life of carved stone and dusty tomes that was all I ever hoped for, in front of the winds of passing years.

        Where the ocean fills two sides of my sight, time crawls.

 Within the cracks of wave-worn rock is every orb of time unchanged, suspended in webbed bubbles of foam, in this place at the end of the sand.

The tide will wash out the beach into fields of shallow pools where the rocks believe they are sinking, mere breaths below the light, to be trampled by every mistaken explorer, but the sugar-spun threads will never melt out of sight of the wise and weary rock, which knows exactly what it saw

           In the blue hour of slow-watching quiet,  you held a ring in the tall salt-grass

And as the waves erase the sand-sculptures crafted of pure fleeting joy, I did so erase this moment of sparkling gray, and leave you for the carved place across this narrow sea.

For every regret there spun a web of sugar-pin thread, stretching and mapping all the miles between you and I

To sail my way back here

        Where the ocean fills two sides of my sight, you are.

There is a path that lies sunken in twilight, where the night has dawned magical and deep, and all is silent. It is here that deep purple waves lap pale blue sand, where no birds wander to watch, and no creatures teem on the shore.

For here, there is only the sound of footsteps on the pearl-wooded boardwalk, somber and ambitious, a pair matching one for one. No mischievous smile of Luna or back-angled crash of water could disturb this loving march, and no distant shadow would dare betray their solace under a green-white full moon.

There are no boats on the horizon, no black-sailed yacht and no hulking carrier to break the seamless sight of sea and sky, where the stars bathe in nothingness along an invisible horizon.

Barely lucid am I to see this sight from my perch at the end of the sand, for

           Where the ocean fills two sides of my sight, there are no shadows

No whispering flickers of candles bathed in waxy shells, no tiny sea-green shovels, only four noble irises casting a lavender glow across a sacred, water-filled redemption

For here, along a pearl-wooded boardwalk deserted by the many eyes, did you hold a different ring, one that did not match the stone from the day when

           In the blue hour of slow-watching quiet, you held a ring in the tall salt-grass which switched my calves, for all the stars paused, waiting for me to sail away home.

Alone with the stars singing their furtive hope did I cast my sight toward a distant coast, and so did the pair with lavender eyes dissipate

           And I did sail away

 To awake, in a field of tall salt-grass.

---

There lies a nest of moss, circled with leaves and a rainbow of tiny blooms just inside the overhang of dripping rock, where stalagmites spear all nightmares that peer with sharp claws after dark.

This cave will harbor your soul as it seeks safe passage through these misty woods, where flowers bloom and you rest, tightly curled, in the warm nest of dreams.

As I skip along these roots, the puddles shine with waterlogged light the fireflies’ nighttime soirée, and you emerge, hoping to dance.

No buried arrowhead of polished bone could outshine your untainted brightness. Just as the willows weep their rhythm, your long lashes will blink their happy beat.