fail

Barelimbed trees and the gossip of crows, eyes grow old just looking. A sky bent into a flat and brittle blue, the air biting at any flesh it can find. The starved wolf of winter taking solace where it can. It isn't the sort of thing you tell in stories. It isn't the sort of picture you paint from life. Twig and leaf, stone and soil. It comes to you like a thought ambushing meditation. It comes to you like the memory of a dream. Scattered bits and missing pieces, and the clarity of detail that lets all the questions loose. Life is left where you lost it. Life is creeping out the box.

The dogs sort out their wars and kinship. They stare at the crow on the line, they watch the trees for rumors. Their heads loll back while they sample the wind, knowing things we will never even guess. Meanwhile the words all come up, blooming out of season. The words crawl along, whisper thin hungry lines until they gather and make the most of something that becomes their meal. They come as scout and swarm, pouring from each fissure, staying where they're put. They try awful hard, but seldom do what they are told.

In a way, you have to say it is a blessing. After all, what is left is all you get. The tired theatrics and the stormy romance all gifts in the any landing you can walk away from tradition. Listen as the water boils, listen as the bones knit. All the flattery that unhorsed you, all the prayers that set you teeth on edge. These flights and precipices. These post traumatic stressors fletched like found poems. The sticks and stones made into shaft and head, slings and arrows only outrageous now in their absence. Take all your toys and go home. Live to fail another day.