A Muse

Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious,
Loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man:
The expedition my violent love
Outrun the pauser, reason.
Macbeth 2:3



I am tired .. so tired even upon first waking .. especially upon first waking. My time is filled from daylight to dusk working and learning as if I am driven ... I am.

The nights ...

the nights are an endless series of restless wakenings to stare at the top of my wagon, turning to study the flap as if something at any moment would ease it aside and announce itself ... there. Company is the small lizard that I have spied clinging to one of the inside wagon stays. He isn't intrusive, merely there and in some ways I find him comforting. His quiet offers me strength and courage to close my eyes and fold my palms together almost reverently, diving again and again back into my dreams.

Searching through them for that one ... that one and only one, similar to the spin of an analog dial on an FM radio. Long wistful silences and a moment of static that you fine tune to hear in more detail or the blaring cacophony of so many so close together, shrill in the screaming discovery of them. Listening carefully, so rapt for some small bit of recognition, the constant hope, the relentless faith, the crushing dismay of time wasted only to squelch to another and it begins again.

Then ...

I felt the fine down rise against the nape of my neck, the soft fur along my cheek, the lurid breath flaming my skin .. only this time I will myself past the fear to turn my gaze to follow hers. The backdrop of garnet sunset and shadows giving way to the approaching silhouette. Even now I wanted to cover my ears, to close my eyes ... knowing ... I would hear the thunder roll in echoes through the forest.

It all went black ...

and inside I could hear the voices of chaos and the furies only this time they sang no sweetened lullabies ...

Open your eyes ...

and I did.

Beneath my fingertips, I felt the downy fur, still soft, still warm, but still. Too, I felt the overwhelming sadness that radiated up through them. Never drawing my eyes away from the depth of the darkness, I watched it shift and divide .. One became two. One to walk away in triumphant victory. The other I had never seen in that fateful moment until now ... standing there motionless, frozen ... still ... for so long ... his slump-shouldered grief dripping from his head to the outstretch of his hand. I heard the agonizing cry that seemed to rend the air in a deafening, crackling, roar.

I knew this one .. I knew his face. I knew every line of his features, each of the peacock hues that traced his cheeks now wet with sorrows. I watched ... an intruder to a moment thought unseen .. unwitnessed ...

And he sank into the mists of time