kodama

in the upper atmosphere.  But it's always all sunny and clear again when that nasty business is cleared up.  Get all that pesky somethingness out of here, we say.  Let us enjoy nothing in peace.  Sun light?  Never actually had much interaction with him, upon reflection.  Wind?  She sang a song to us once, but it wasn't very, shall we say moving?  But, every now and then, after the itinerant discomfort of density pays us an unwelcome visit the wind brings us something else.  A song, but it's not hers.  A light but it's not his.  Something from below she says, but we never put much stock in ups and downs.  Is and isn'ts sure, but ups and downs?  That'll be the day. Something small and warm she says.  But before we can properly articulate our incredulity that god damned know-it-all moon shows up with her "size is directly proportional to warmth but entropic equilibrium is inversely proportional to warmth in a closed system," (you know the old yarn,) so they're small and getting smaller, warm but getting colder, and where's the harmony in that equation?  That'll be the day it never rains but it...

What would we be without her?  Flat, even, unchanging.  More whole perhaps but wholly lifeless.  From the world shattering violence of her birth, to her eventual dismissal into the beyond -- neither symbol nor metaphor, but a map.

How would we have grown without her guidance?  Torn from the flat, even, unchanging landscape of all that is, to orbit an unremembered and unremarkable past.  It was only in the certainty of her endless reawakening that we found any respite from our wakelessness. But she has turned her face from us so many times before.  One day, she will not turn back. 

Will we follow in what ways we are able?  Is it enough to internalize the endeavor, to wholly integrate the journey into our inner lives?  Is the physical endeavor to step beyond the moon an integral part of the process, or simply another map?

Is this life the road, or just more lines on the page?

"There is no line to walk.  No magic moment when you know.  The surprise comes upon looking back, realizing this is no longer that.  There was no decision, no moment of transition; it wasn't for anyone, because of anything.  'That this is,' is the only certainty.  Therefore whatever was is not.  The only landmark is the dawning of surprise, but that too will fade with the death that is certainty.  Then there will be no before, no after.  Only, god-willing, a way of saying something, without saying anything at all.

"I wanted to laugh then.  I thought, 'All I have ever wanted is to laugh, and never stop laughing.'  And immediately I knew that if I hadn't wanted that, hadn't teetered on the brink of it all of my days - i would have screamed, and never stopped screaming.  My throat would crack and bleed.  My voices would fail.  And that's when the sound would become unbearable.  It would be no longer a friction of particles, but a frisson of moments stacked upon moments.  Indivisible, unending,

"But then... then it came back for me.  That voice.  The one I always told people about, anyone who would listen really.  The awkward conversation with a stranger.  That was me.  I invented that.  No really.  You were different, you had no choice.  You were stuck with me.  No really, my story is written in your DNA.  If you have the time.  But who reads these days.  Anyways -

"'This is no laughing matter, ma petite lise.  Time to dance.'

"No, that's how he said it.  Sss.  With the 's.  

"I think he'd know

Leave much to the scrying eye

Fulminant braces -- seraphic embrace in
Breathe truth to somniferous lies

Lower your eyes
My lashes brush
The bristles of lower
Lids -- distrust

To quench all thirst
In the depths of
Her eyes'
Sun -
Shine
leave
lust
behind

Avert your faces from feminine graces
Your head belongs to one lady who gave thee
The measure of light
The price -- one life

If it's worthwile
We'll meet you
for tea

Senses addled, Mara struggled through ever denser scrub and reed and briar.  Hours elapsed and yet I could still track her progress effortlessly.  A side effect of our brief, yet decidedly peaked, interaction or the result of inuries beyond what the girl could comprehend?  I had opened old wounds, betrayals and abandonments, planted the seeds of a dream within the girl's obdurate, yet undyingly resilient, mind.
Some of this Mara suspected.  She knew of me second-hand, knew the appropriate curses to brand me a target for any Raven within hundreds of miles -- a trick that worked both ways to a seer par excellence such as myself.
Mara was clever, yes, to guard her mind now as she does, her mental fog lifting with dawn's first rays -- drawing new strength from the light in a very real sense.
Released my mental hold on her seamlessly; she was aware of the intrusion but not the extent of my control.
Located severe sub-cranial hemhoragging where my knee cracked her thick skull.  Our fearless commander would see that appropriate attentions could be administered once she was restrained.  If my father underestimated her for an instant, Silent would not be quick enough to save him.  Timing was everything at this juncture.  Every pawn on the board moved to the proper place, every knight charging, every fastness firing all cannons at the one crucial clarion call.
Villages will rise up in the night, steeling themselves for the fight.  Fortresses that have stood barred to the outside world for centuries shall throw wide their doors, the cavalry heeding the cries rising from the burning ruins that will by then dot the plains.  A cold, elusive tribe of hunters will leave their home in the frozen wastes of the far north, forewarned of a great disasted upon the Arctic Sea.  

"You are my wild card, child.

[see attached:]
[As Lions We Go, Medulla d'ignis de la corazon divina, We Go Now As Lambs Among Wolves (Sharpen your horns]