Listen to Brandon L. Rucker's music while enjoying this page
In the green, glazy wood,
the old path crosses my steps,
winding into the distance --
an unfamiliar and twisting, twining trail,
where the trees stretch their arms
like branches of invitation.
The guardians try to enfold me in their leaf-soft wings,
but I stop to touch the glyph scars of growth
on the old trees.
Watching the running rain along the
ancient cracked bark,
thinking about my sister.
It has been so long, Sister.
You took the chance to step off the path.
You shunned the succulent, redolent fruit
that molds into our hands and minds.
I stare at the odd, unappetizing growths
hanging in the webs of the old trees.
Did you taste these fruits, Sister?
Was the flesh sweet?
Did your heart beat with eagerness
to sample the unknown?
Your seed swells within me.
I see the old pathways,
I touch those decaying trees and
marvel at the rain illuminating
the powder lichens layering the bark.
The guardians' eyes are budded
with disapproval, when I ask about you.
They say you are gone, grown into strangeness.
Your bones nourish the old trees.
They say that, our path moves onwards,
moving to the core of the forest where
I will root into the soil and forget.
Where I will grow into the perfect light.
Step by step, led by the guidance of the guardians.
I have traveled the correct path all of my life
But in this green glazy forest.
I think of you.
You deserve more
than this fragile, emerging root coiling around my heart,
my imperfect eulogy to my sister.
