Ascahithiel

I wish I could show you beauty in the way an arm moves through air, the drops of water beading in the kitchen sink and reflecting light, the rippling of muscles and tendon just under the skin, the silence of another person in the room just breathing, the ghosts of the past lingering in the history of everything. I wish I could show you beauty but your eyes are blind and your ears are deaf, and I cannot show you my world.

i am destined to be the greatest of the lowest, the richest of the poorest, the eldest of the youngest. i am destined to be the most beautiful of the most hideous, the most well-read of the illiterate, the funniest of the tragically inclined. i am destined to be the breaker, the healer, the prophet, the saint and the devil. i am destined to be the wind whistling through the weeds, the thunder booming and the halfhearted smile of someone who's not quite certain.

if i have a daughter i will teach her to be a warrior, fierce and gentle, with the heart of a lion, the eyes of a hawk, and the strength of a bear. if i have a daughter i will teach her to be a lover, fierce and gentle, with a heart full of love, and lips spilling smiles and an easy laugh, and a soul as light as a feather. if i have a daughter i will teach her to be all she wants to be, fierce and gentle, with the stars in her eyes the moon on her brow the world in her embrace and wings on her feet.

Time menaces the innocent lambs of spring with the thunder of summer and the crouching darkness of fall and the desolate winds of a cold, cold winter. there is no escape from the end, the same destiny, the final mortal gasp as souls ascend to the emptiness of endless space and the cold stars, hoping for pearly gates and the flutter of white wings and the triumphant symphony of strings. Time menaces the little lamb with the promise of love and aching hearts and the sweetest things one could even imagine and the deepest losses the heart can bear.

I am a mountain,                          | Je suis une montagne, I am stone,                                 | Je suis pierre, I am fierce.                                 | Je suis féroce. I am loneliness and silence             | Je suis solitude et silence and immense majesty,                   | et une majesté immense, I am the sweep of wind                 | Je suis le coup de vent and the touch of frost,                 | et la première gelée, I am the endless sky                    | Je suis le ciel sans fin and the far ocean,                      | et l'océan lointain, I am endlessness            

you looked sad while you were dreaming. I wondered what shadows crossed your mind, that the depths of sleep should be so disturbed. was it the moon, hiding behind the clouds? or was it the endless tides, ever moving? or was it the ephemeral stillness of the fog? you were never one to be bittersweet or melancholic with the rains, looking to the promise of every sunrise. where have the stars gone? where the sun, the spring? where the laughter of youth? the winter has never been kind to souls like yours. with endless frozen plains, jagged mountain peaks and a desolate beauty, there was never anything left for you with the first dust of snow