2017.5 - First and Last

Not all gods live in groves
Not all skies burn.
We sought an answering pulse in the world
Stretched skins to echo
Sending an embrace to everything
Seeking answers in flesh and breath

And we found it in the rise and fall
And in the glory of the simple
Teeth chattering on that
First cold morning
One minute past dawn
And no-one told you
The way the colours would blend
And bleed and the way that warmth
Blesses.
The way your skin stretched itself
Over cramping muscles
And suddenly
You couldn’t stop
And there was nothing,
Nothing between the sky
And the bottom of your lungs

At the top of the hill
You couldn’t hear anything, at first,
Over your own gasps,
The protests of creaking bones
Too long still
And pushed to flight
And drinking in height
And the drop of earth
And the promise of rain
Seen three hours away.

Measuring distance in time
You are an alchemist
Blood flushing blue-white fingertips,
Stinging the tops of your ears
When was the last time you felt that?
When was the last time you knew
The size of your ears
Where they finished?

And when was the last time you heard
The praising skies
Echo and answer each other
Longing across the flocking distances
Bright as wingflight and
You wonder if you should want to take a photo
And you will never take a photo

This moment is textless
A grin stretching skin
Into a peerless ache.
And soon.
And soon the descent, slow and rueful
And yours.
But now?
But now you sing,
A diaphragm-deep gulder
Bellying the words before words
And this
This freedom?
This will tuck, a fold of always,
Rising to the surface
Each time you see such colours,
Each time your hear your own gasps,
Feel the span of your ears,
Freezing hot,
Each time you do not take a picture
Of the sunrise.


Those tricksters at Lies, Dreaming Podcast generously supplied some idiosyncratic prompts for NaPoWriMo. One struck me, at first because of the name, and then because it was a link, and then because what it linked to was so stunning, including what lay beneath. The poem above is a free-written piece that was the result of writing while listening. I thoroughly recommend it.