half a moon to go

Here we go, the wheel turning fast. Here we go, the berated gift of vision. The shadows grow as the dancers reel. The scent of smoke and the rise upon the wind. The tumbled skies bright and bedazzled as you smudge your chambers and light the candles. Frantic panics beat their wings within your shroud, troubled grumblings from hideaway child and the windows giving in. Awake within the measured breath, you are at once winged in ascent, the moon on the water encircled with the word. All that you carry carrying you.

I crack my back and shift my hips, trying to briefly turn the tide of this rough decline, shifting between aches like bare feet on hot sand. It is a dance of diminishing returns and intermittent respites, leaving me the questionable benefit of at least being on brand. One foolish squander to the next, here a star, there a forest. Carrying memories of kisses and coyotes and circle of paw prints padded in the sand. Small fires and cold nights, never knowing there’s always colder to come.

It can only be a temple, this clumsy conduit. It can’t help but be the journey, it’s the only thing you take. The days float past as the years flood in, drowning in the distance carried, wearing only want and wound. Little treasures wear away. One by one our compañeros ride off, leaving us alone as the sun goes down. Still we spin and spin. We turn, holding the world together dancing ‘round the flame. The fire smokes and cracks. Join hands and rise.