As damselfly wings sailing
Through nothing. The crow
Once more takes flight.
When all is blue-red it flies,
Its caw rending dark as a knife,
Before it rushes to be whole.
Is whole. As the winds duly blow
Throughout the storm-caught night,
Underneath the howling moan
Of threaded, frayed, distorted life,
Of threaded, whole, unified soul,
Above the wildling, foam-crusted sea,
Amid the slivered, cold-hot rain,
There flies the crow, alone,
A lone, red-blue-black specked stain.
It binds them, binds them free.
It binds them, binds them free,
Free of where mortality lies.
So on it flies, the red-blue stain,
Looking, against the darkness, frail,
Though isn’t. Only it, it alone
Knows the ways the soul-dust sails
And knowing this defies torrent rain.
Crow as Death, and Death as Crow…
The shape all blue-dust, all red-dust sees.
Together mingling, dancing in their flight,
The dust of Death and Life and Soul,
Amidst the stormy rain, the tempest, fly.
Into Death’s domain they go, away from Life,
These particles torn asunder by Fate’s knife.
All around, ceaseless, startless, the winds moan
Across the firmament, amidst the stars, within the whole
Of time and space of ending endless soul-filled night.
So it listens, multifaceted Death, to the soundless blows.
So it listens, multifaceted Death, to the soundless blows
That strike against the soul-dust, twirling free,
Dancing, snowflakey, in the stormy night.
So it waits, multifaceted Death, to cleanse the lies
And clean the soul-dust until it shines whole.
It cannot do else, for all must be free of stain
Causing the winds to sing, moan, bemoan
The finding, above all, through all, of the frail
Dust thrown by itself, like these grains by knife
Cut out of the foolish-desperate soul, alone.
Playful, vivacious, it is still filled with unlived life
As it lifts Crow’s wings to see it sail
And soar through the sky, to see it fly
Beyond the night and beyond the pouring rain
To guide home all the just-lost souls.
Red-faded, blue-faded, goes Death’s Crow
Ever resting, ever caught in soul-flight
Travelling through the airy sea.
Travelling through the airy sea,
To avoid the wind’s chilling blows,
The soul-dust is caught, gently, in flight,
Where it is free, free, free! So free,
Shepherded by Death’s shape, Crow,
Throughout their endless night.
Red-dust, blue-dust, they are the dust of souls
And, amidst, within the darkness lies
Their free-jail, unbeat by pelting rain.
Death, its shadow figure, looms whole
Over the darkness where its shape flies,
From life’s loves languidly abstaining
As the blue-red, red-blue dust around it sails
And flails, and dances on the wind’s moans.
Yet Death is not entirely free of life —
Running through the dust a thread frail —
And Death itself is not alone,
Balancing on the edge of life’s knife.
Balancing on the edge of life’s knife,
Above the watery, amidst the airy seas,
It flies amidst world’s canopy, alone.
The wind buffets it. Beat by beat; blow by blow,
Dispersing the soul-dust, so grainy and frail,
Infinitely vulnerable in its flight,
The seeds of all it is that makes life,
Gives it its strength and makes it free.
All around, hunting, dancing, moans
The storm. All around Death’s Crow,
Its shadow darkening the assailing
Wind that reigns over the bloody night.
Red-dust blue-dust darkly stains;
Tonight, no tonight, is not a night for souls
To roam, to play, to dance, to fly.
Tonight, a turn-point. Darkness lies
Waiting for itself, for the changing whole
Of Death amidst the torrent, ceaseless rain.
So Death amidst the torrent, ceaseless rain
Awaits the cut of sharpened knife
That plunges into nothing’s hole.
The soul-dust, eyeless, sees
And falls. And on the unground it lies
Abandoned, silent, lifeless, alone.
The darkened specks no longer fly;
The wind no longer sends blow by blow
To beat down the blue-red dust of souls,
So tiny, tender and so frail.
Blue-dust fades, the red-dust a stain,
Death’s Crow no longer in its flight
Struck down in stormy night
To be not Death’s, but to be Life’s;
Not to defend its right, but to assail
It. Keep trapped what should be free.
Such now the duties of Life’s Crow.
In the red-dust a figure — a shape — moans.
In the red-dust a figure — a shape — moans;
The sound ends the heavy, falling rain.
Shimmering faint-blue, Life’s Crow
Slices through the sky like a knife
Of sapphire glitter. Free, so, so free,
But never, never complete, never whole
As the red-dust covers, like a billowing sail,
The stone and dirt and clay of heresy,
Necessity. Travelling the Crow of Life
Brings such to where otherwise lies
Death, lurking in the sun of night.
Scattering the blue-dust as it goes, alone
It crosses the world in its flight.
Through day and dark, they fly
The Crow and the dust, a blue stain
Where once was red of vicious blow
Against a world so delicate and frail,
Where were ever-free the souls.
Where were ever-free the souls,
There now dwell happy-sad moans
To lament a world so delicate and frail.
There now comes but gentle rain
To soften Death’s lasting blow.
It belongs to Life, the dust-Crow.
Red-dust gliding past, unstained
It is by the glimmering red knife.
The Crow collects and sheds and flies
Towards the jail-bound. Free, free
They are when the Crow passes in flight,
Freer than from Death’s red-dust hole,
Alone. Stone. Silent groan. Ever alone.
The blue-dust soars, the red-dust sails
Gently to the ground, below nigh-eternal night,
Below the push and sway of gentle air-sea,
Caught in nigh-eternal, ever-damning lies.
Red-dust catches Death. Blue-dust catches Life.
Red-dust catches Death. Blue-dust catches Life.
All-dust captures shining, shimmering souls
Enraptures them with brilliant lies
Until they with sorrowed ecstasy moan
Until the world that birthed them sees
And dust-Crow finds them small and frail
And shattered. Specks of dust into the night
As fine, unfelt, unseen, drizzled rain
Descend. All-dust the world sails
Helped and hindered by wind’s blows.
Above, below, within, without, but alone
Guides them the now-Life’s Crow,
Guides them to Death’s hole
To begin there now Life’s stain.
For that, and that alone, in flight
The Crow goes. Its cry a knife
Twisting through the bonds of the free,
That they can, again, sing and fly.
That they can, again, sing and fly
Surrounded by the beauty that is life:
A life lived well, a life lived free,
A life as true and pure as any soul.
Troubled not, now, by the glimmer of knife,
The soul-dust dances, trembles, lies
Or comes caught in Crow’s flight.
Not now sound the wind’s lonely moans;
Not now come the Red-dust’s dry stains.
Above the blue, tumultuous sea
The soul-dust severs, becomes whole.
A tiny speck, dark, daring and frail
That guides them all, is Life’s Crow.
Leading all into the day from the night
At the tumble’s head, solo, alone.
It feels not the soft, pattering rain
Nor the gentle, playful wind’s blows.
Free, free as freedom birds, it sails.
Free, free as freedom birds, it sails,
As delicate and vibrant as a dragonfly.
The wind no more stirs than blows,
Singing, sighing of newborn Life
Playing in the pattering rain
Where it is evermore caught free
And lonely. So lonely, so alone,
And yet not. For there they are, the souls
Flitting, fretting through the fading night
Torn free from Death’s shatter-knife
At the whim of a blue-tinted Crow
That caws, that sings, that calls, that lies,
That withstands the centuries, though frail
Its countenance. No more than a bird in flight
It looks to those below. Yet calling, carrying the whole
Of creation on its tail it does. Never a sigh, never a moan,
As it travels beyond where human ken can see,
From blue-dust shine back to red-dust stain.
From blue-dust shine back to red-dust stain
The soul-dust flurries, singing, sailing
Through the airy, fickle, unseen sea
Through which the two-fold Crow flies.
The earth below, where red-dust rests, moans;
The sky above, where blue-dust, plays, blows.
Far, far away from the dust’s endless hole
That now holds rusted death, once precious life
Chained to it in tortured, lasting flight,
Caught, beaten by the torrent rains,
Merciless winds, so cruel yet so frail.
Now the dust is chained anew. In its chains is free.
Yet half the dust of all still in darkness lies, always lies,
And the shapeless, endless creature lives, all alone.
All alone, the blue-red-tinged servant, the Crow
Flies to spread the dust grains of immortal souls.
And far below glimmered silver-red a knife,
That carried soul-dust into light-turned night.
On the night that such precious soul took flight
The windows stained with thick drops of rain,
A silver-glimmer knife steals fast a younger life.
It knows naught as it sails, delicate and frail,
The soul. It knows only the search for being whole,
Flitting, crashing across the airy sea, longing to be free,
Free of the Crow, not free, caught in the wind’s fluffy blows.
The Crow flies, with soul-dust all, to where the dust lies
In waiting. Alone. Waiting for the blue-tinged Crow to moan.
As I mentioned elsewhere, I really like writing sestinas and find them delightfully challenging. Sometimes, however, I want something that’s even more challenging and I end up writing double or triple sestinas, which are double to triple the amount of words and effort. They’re great fun!
That’s what happened here. I wanted something exceptionally challenging and then had a blast writing it. I hope you’ve enjoyed as much as I did!
Though the gyrfalcon startled off its perch on the fence, it cried out a warning. The bird circled Emma, still calling its kak kak kak, as she pushed open the gate. The field beyond was deserted. By now, as first the governments then the relatives had given up in despair, it usually was.
Emma still went out to gather the corpses, what was left of them after the war, every day. Her husband and brother were out there somewhere. Any of the bones and rotten limbs she’d since buried might have belonged to them. Their bodies might have been recovered already, beyond all hope of recognition, by herself, by others. A lifetime ago she’d believed she’d always recognise them. But now…
Emma fixed her eyes on the spot she’d selected the evening before. If she wanted to, she could stay near the gate — there were still enough bodies to be found there — but she’d vowed to pick a new spot every day, both for her own luck and for the sake of the soldiers lost. The only thing she could never shut out on the pock-marked, drowned graveyard was the stench, though her stomach had gotten used to it all the same. This visit, the gyrfalcon’s call wouldn’t erase itself from her mind either. Not five steps onto the field Emma found herself wishing she’d brought her gun so she could shoot the damned bird and shut it up.
She was about to stomp her foot down with a snarl, bad idea or no, when something knocked her sideways. Hard. What landed on top of her seemed, for a moment, to be a sprawl of red cloth, gigantic feathers, sun-browned limbs, and snow white fur. Then the blur resolved itself into a man dressed in blood, pushing himself upright and off her, and a white, shaggy-haired dog at his side that was growling softly.
“Land mine,” the man said. “You were about to step on a land mine.”
“They removed them all.” Though, of course, Emma knew they couldn’t have. She refused to take the man’s hand as she got up. Brushing at the mud on her clothes, she only managed to get them dirtier. She made to continue the walk to her designated work area of the day. The dog — no, wolf — growled louder and blocked her path. The man shook his head. Unsure whether to cross her arms or put her hands on her hips, Emma did neither and merely glared at him. “Let me get to work.”
“I came to talk to you.” He said it simply, which startled her, and then Emma’s brain registered that the man wasn’t wearing trousers, nor indeed anything resembling a modern outfit. He was dressed like he belonged in some history play or another. When the war had just broken out, they’d been incredibly popular, a show of patriotic pride, but not anymore. Where had the man come from? Apart from her, the dead and the gyrfalcon, the wasteland had been deserted. The gate was the only way in and she’d seen no one on the road. He couldn’t have hidden in a trench; he’d have been soaked through and his clothes would be even dirtier.
“What do you want?”
“To tell you to stop looking.” He silenced her with a glance and spoke on, “They’re not here. They found a calling that suited them better. Come.” He bent down to retrieve something — a walking stick it looked like — and loped away. Emma soon followed, stepping where he did just in case. The wolf walked behind her, sometimes nudging her on and sometimes shepherding her onto a different path. Why she went, she did not know, unless it was fear that the wolf would attack her.
The stranger’s path seemed to lack logic, but his stride was sure, measured to let Emma keep up. His walking stick was tall enough to be a staff, really, and the man used it to beat out a syncopated rhythm on the dead.
At last, she managed to ask, “Who are you? Where are we going? How did you get here? Why didn’t I see you?”
“I walk the path,” he said, a shrug just palpable in his voice, though not his movements. “It crossed your loved ones and they followed.” He said nothing more after that and Emma was caught in
her own thoughts, nebulous as they felt. The ground sucked at her boots, yet it did not appear to affect the stranger or his wolf. It occurred to her to be afraid, or to refuse to follow until she had explanations, but she couldn’t bring herself to do either. She felt hazy.
“Where are we going?” she asked again once she’d recovered enough of herself and her voice to speak. They’d been walking for what seemed like hours. Earlier, Emma’d pinched herself. She wasn’t sure whether that helped check one’s sanity as well as one’s dreams, but it had hurt either way.
Some time ago she’d realised that spending so much of her time with nothing but death for as long as she had might have driven her mad and she’d made up the man and his wolf. Perhaps she was delirious. Perhaps she’d injured herself unknowingly and the wound had become infected. If she weren’t making him up, for what ever reason, he was mad and she was still mad to follow him. Part of her was tempted to go back to the gate, go back to her hotel and take a break from her work. But the wolf’s wet nose prodding her onward stopped her. If these weren’t figments of her imagination, it was madder still not to follow.
“Spiral’s heart.” It took Emma a moment to realise it was an answer to her question. Not that it was an answer that told her anything and not that they were walking in a spiral. He continued before she could speak, “Where, if you are brave, you may find all that you seek here on this field, perhaps even more. First you must walk the path with me.”
“I don’t want to,” Emma muttered, more to herself than to the strange man, but even so she did not stop walking.
“I know.” He sounded apologetic. “But you called me all the same.”
So they walked.
The title from this piece comes from a line in Wilfred Owen’s Dulce Et Decorum Est.
I’d been reading a lot of first hand accounts of World War 1 and this piece flowed out of that. It was a fascinating piece to write as I don’t write a lot of historical fantasy or base my stories closely on our-world events often.
There is little I like better than
To cuddle up beside you at night.
It is only you, my love, who can
Give me such intense delight.
I like running my fingers through your hair,
Though you hate it loose and tie it with care.
It tickles so when you trace my breast…
Some days that makes me skittish and afraid.
You don’t press, and I like to be caressed,
And you are gentle and careful and staid.
I like it when you hold me, safe and strong,
And rest your head on mine, all evening long.
I like it too when we are together one,
Feather by Feather and Other Stories Page 20
