The Salmon King

A wanderer born, all legs and lips and eyes

Called from toddlerhood to paw the halls in shadow

Seeking after what I could not say except to heed a call for the silent winding hours between the bustle of day and din

In time, a will-o-the-wisp, of sorts, unhappy in my bobbing listless lines

In search of purchase somewhere maybe elsewhere where a seed might find respite and die upwards

What could I say to them about my soul

I am, I suppose

And as with all such things in the way of them

I burned

Ashes float too, you see

And so I saw, the spiral went inwards as well and was all the more seductive for that

Apprenticed as a keeper of secrets and a teller of tales to say it both forwards and backwards

And there were all the old halls made somehow grand and baroque

Head tilted to the whispers of the dead

Drinking deep of old prejudices and long incantations

A feast for beauty, in whose honor I could scarcely fall

And I am changing the subject

Proud salmon, swiftly making good account of a life against a river running forwards

Small mystic, and voicelessly amok in marvels

In time I found the tree, missed the nuts, and dug idly amongst the snakes bedded down within its roots

I thought they whispered then, they're singing now

A call to raise my hands up to the sky and claim it

Good fun, in its way, though I intoned even then the formal customs of the fae

A gift for a gift and never more, bury your name and keep a song on your lips

Small aegis that.

I stole a branch for want of wand to wield that I might cast my visions forth from all that I had hoarded through the snow

To clever by leagues to see the ancient net, tripped at the ouset and set forth

Wands and words are binding,

Spellsworn as I was, I could not now descend nor dig my hands beneath the soil or rest

Centuries passed through idol fingers, sifting for the stone

A beggar midwifed a warrior with hands befit for hammers, who laid down his life in the dream time

Those old bones still whispered and the hands have a wisdom of their own that outdoes the trickster eye

A river is not a mirror, as the old tale goes and it is the way of fools to walk with wet feet and dry hair when one is without a map

Magician go forth

And I am changing the subject

Askew and akimbo I painted faces with my blood

A cave wall, shadowed as the day the first child's hand pressed it's name into its mother

Her daughter rode an elk across my stream and I named her the queen of horses. Hedge knight no more

Then ran.

I heard again the prince of the dawn roaring trumpets outside the gates of Constantinople

And behold, without a wit or a prayer my feet made path to far Jerusalem

A desert heart will always long for sky, and stars above I know it

In time, the vultures wheeling high above my sleeping voice made haste and beat their wings to whither I know not where, though ponder

I still hear the ringing of the shivered spears

Finding there, her clever joke, that there was nothing much to say but I was play the part and act my heart out

The choice is ancient, the tree renewed

Outstretched arms, eyes cast up, nails in hand, exhale

How tall this staff has grown, and heavy now with miles of road and whispered stories

It leads me steady onwards, gracious mercy, patient friend

And I dream sleeping and waking of where the river springs from stone

I will plant it there in spring time, sing out my autumn heart

And sleep amongst the singing snakes and bones

And I, right now, am changing the subject