blue smoke blue

She sings softly, swaying along the slumbering fault lines. She moves slowly, unaware of the halo crows are painting against the wind or the song that stalks her wake. I see her from beneath this tide of drowning skies, this unblinking dream of distant nations and strange tongues. All the stories trailing off towards the horizon, separating from the smoke and the song. All the lines tangled together and knotted along similar skins.

Some days it is the comfort of the fire, the shared circle and the journey of the word. Some days it is the ritual of the switchback and the cradling of the flame. The whole wide world just wait and wander. The open spaces and the sprayed-on sky. I watch through the lens of burned down bridges. Her spell is sown upon the wind.

I do not know from prayers and presses. I do not know from siren spell or lullaby. I carry the poem and the tailings of dusk. I coddle the spark and the witness of falling stars. The lonesome edge tangled along the border of the night. Those flickers of heaven mingled with fresh ash. Blue smoke blue staining the failing day.