© Gabriel Dey

Grappling for Stars

Let us falter—
bite the starry hand that dreams us.
The beginnings are here.
Where the animals draw with the embers of night,
they dance and turn, and we share of their silenced tongue.

The animals are runaway children,
disparate with their small world of wonder—
and their predator—hunger and despair.
An Eden perched—a moon—hallowed on a sharp stick.
Their palms face upward—small bodies filled with moonlight.

Its traits—abandonment—a red thicket of songberries—
a shadow—a diary—a burning pine—
of which I dreamed closed upon me,
with its smoking and smoldering tongue.
A small forest I shall wrap myself in as I send this letter home.

Winter arrives. Yet the snow does not fall. I have grown closer
to this barren ground—I have lost my words—
I am no longer bound by my mother's arms—a weak and circular tomb.
Or my father's tongue, whittling me like the end of a small stick.
With this knowledge, which stone do I turn,
that will lift me out of winter's small shadow?
We are all soldiers. Our letters home a delectable script.

Its traits—warm hands—an ancient fire—a checkered floor—
we wrestle the small statues—we burn and turn.
Our maps are useless. Perhaps there is something
waiting beyond the door. To pull us forward.

Soothe that rugged stone that strikes your tongue.
It will reap of our old yet growing bones.
Beware. Beware. Winter is coming and I shall not sleep.
I will hibernate with my thoughts and take no food.

I will burn at the pyre of all things known,
grow a new seed upon my tongue. It will pulse.
Faint—a struggling breath. A new form of light.
A stone grappling upon the dark shard. Of night.

A night stone, I shall inhabit. Beware. Beware.
That slinking moon. Sinking slowly behind your thoughts.