Thursday, March 21, 2013

Two

There are two worlds
They lay upon each other
Like leaves from the maple tree
Clipped from skeletal branches
By crisp autumn fingers
And gently laid over each other
Like pages of a book
In the one world things are blue
And the sky is black all the time
The water is salt and the air is cold
And people are each attached at the waist to a ship
When they laugh and they cry
Their sails billow out full and pregnant
And they are sped on their way
Blasting through arctic air
Because here there is no sun
There is only ever the dancing lights
And shades of starlight foreign to nightime
In this world the man is a whisper
In this world he hides on wings of shadow
And he draws tears from the eyes of sleeping children
And feeds on the unspoken dreams hidden there
And in this world he rises up on the North Wind
And hides away into the shadows of the Winter
To his house carved out of horn and ivory
And his inner chamber lit with bottled moonlight
That he uses to look into the glass upon the floor
The glass through which he sees
The other world and her
In the other world things are orange
And the sky is red like burnt rust all the time
There is no water in this world only blood and fire
And the air smells of spices and coffee and desire
Here there are no people
Only ever him and her
And this world is unstable
It grows and shrinks about them
Sometimes it is only as big as the inside of his arms
Other times it stretches outwards like a breath
And expands out to the starless crimson sky
In this world she talks to him and he is honest
In this world he talks and is not silent
And their home is a garden in the East
And when they go into the abandoned bower
They pass beneath a sword of flame that touches their tongues
And they hold hands and breathe in the smoke and the fire
And they lie underneath a honeysuckle bush
And as they sleep and their sweaty skin is pressed against each other
The nectar from the flowers fall on the man's back
And leaves drops of sticky honey like small footprints
They love here but they do not make love
Though they know of it
Many times has he taken her to see the tree
The tree they cannot touch and cannot speak of
The tree covered in flowers that are fire
And burn with smoke and incense
Like a pillar of sacrifice constantly luring
And never being consumed or satisfied
She knows about the tree and what it is meant to do
At least she thinks she has heard stories
But she has never tasted of the fruit of the tree
Because this tree has not made fruit for them
And so they stand underneath the open flowers
And as thick globs of nectar fall like resin
He puts out his finger and catches a sticky string
And brings the golden ambrosia to his lips
And offers her a simple and chaste kiss
And she kisses and sleep takes her
And he leaves her there under the tree to dream of what could be
And makes his way to the place where the four rivers flow
And finds the small pool there
Lined with blue narcissus dipping down
And when he looks through the still surface
He can see the other world and the other him
And they both reach out and touch their fingers
But they can never seem to touch
And the one in the blue world wonders
If he can find her, the girl in the garden
If he can find the her in his world
Will it break the mirror
Or will it mean the tree in the garden will finally bare fruit
And will the girl in the garden finally eat of the fruit
And finally become like a god
Having two worlds with a piece of glass in between
Having two natures not at war but working in harmony
In tandem towards a goal of eternal subjugation
Will the small taste of power be enough to corrupt her
And the man in the garden wonders if maybe he should stop
Never come back to the pool by the rivers
Maybe be content with chaste kisses
And small drops of ambrosia
Maybe be content with losing the darkenss
And be content with living forever in that unstable world
They both know there will be a day
When the glass will shatter and they will become one
They both know there will be a day when the tree's flowers will wilt
And the fruit will hang full and ripe and low and heavy from those branches
And they know she will go walking through the garden
And he will meet her there at the tree, at the centre
And he will say, "Will one quick taste really kill you?"
And she will say, "No, but I'm not ready yet."
And he will say, "Doesn't it look good. Don't you want it?"
And she will say, "It does look good. I do want it. But I can't."
Because she also has another world that she looks into
And she also has another she that looks back at her.
And he will say, "A little more knowledge is never bad. Why don't you know me a little bit more?"
And she will say, "Is it really this important to you? Do you know that I will get the worse end of the deal?"
And he will say, "I love you."
And she will take the fruit and eat of it and her eyes will be opened
And all the walls of mirrors will break and all the other shes will be inside of her
And all the other hes will be inside of him
And they will have to live with the knowledge that they chose the world of the garden
The world of blood and fire and smoke
The world of desire and anger and passion
That the world of love will be their world
Until the glass walls come back up again
Until he is trapped in the blue world away from her
And they both hope that this story hasn't been written yet
And they both fear that this end may be inevitable
And that they are stuck carried along by a current
Towards a wall of ice looming ahead
Like there are two worlds that lay upon each other
Like two leaves of a folio
Like two chapters of a book

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