life cycle of a butterfly or a storm

By a bush, next to a wall which leads the way of its balance act, the footsteps made one

before the other. You don’t have to be young to walk along the top cap-stone, but they

say it helps. From here, like any wall on its way out of town, it will take you back there;

like the left hand which is reached out to touch the face of a wall and know that even this

maze will see you free in the end. All that matters, for now at least, is this bush; kept

short by the wild of nature, too orderly to attend to the needs of everyday growth and

disrepair. In the background for most, it is noticed only when life comes its way. Life

today is a rustle, which breaks my eyes from their path and takes me with them into

looking at the sound; where it comes from the foot of a dark shape, to crackle out as the

finding of some bird in search of whatever may be on offer. Here, looking into the bush,

where it is moved as furtive against the set, I am left to feel that so much begins small. I

am waiting but for now I leave the bird to fidget its blacks and yellows that I may

continue on, following the wall uphill. The sounds are made to disappear underneath the

rest; the edge of town, constant in its noise of transit - the smallest garden, no match for

the cluttered and overgrown. With a thought, I wish the town good luck and as though I

speak some other language, the car unlocks. I open and close, the bulk of the noise left

behind with the street, and so I speak a common language. We begin to talk of how

good it is to be understood, to find sense in the dysfunction of our own unique identity,

how good it is to be touched by darkness.

For a while, nothing really changes, we are the topic, both subject and object. By now it

is known and so it is wanted; do I know a place where we could match flesh for flesh.

Better able to think now, the only distraction being mine, I fall into feeling about my

mind for yet other open doors. Racing out from the walls and the towns, away, from the

way of life, the distance long let go of in turn for closed eyes; we make our own way,

marking the ride only with the places we can’t. Not a lot of other conversation, apart

from where and when, and no thought for the holes that will soon be. The one now is

the depth of unknown. Coming to take it that no sound means yes, the car stops. Eyes

move about but watch always on the delicate markings, like animal and animal meeting

for the first time; the only first time there has ever been, the only one an animal will ever

remember. Do we surprise ever, rising up into nowhere with one who is at the time

attracted by the positive, ourselves in the possibility of now. But the taking of air cannot

stop and so we continue: lifting cloth as though propelled by the heights alone, as filth

which can be retrieved when we surface. The feeling is no one will ever know. We

bind like forever has no meaning but that which has come of now. Each surely hurting

beneath, yet somehow legs in the form of arms, unfold, as much to uncross and open the

gods up to the indecency of their affections. Here for one reason: both needs are to feel

what is known. Inside the other, now as good as never before. The roles are there, and

gradually they are felt only to accentuate the role of life itself. Each in time, to favour

the fullness of imminence, we surge into one as though the root cause of every touch

were its only sighted end. These are the lips penetrated by the hand, which takes

nowhere in its grasp; each finger, the tendril in receipt of its present as it is laid before

them.

Here on the grounds that only the greatest of life begins small, the great unknown,

feathers into shades of everywhere we have ever been and man’s flight resumes its ascent

with the gargoyles and the grotesques, each perched like demons whose only craving is

ecstasy; each rabid of blood and soul. The mere body tolerates any and all companion,

be it death or angels, the nearest we are ever to touch any but each other, or ourselves.

The rain falls in a field and its surrounds, far as we care to look. The car, a ripened pod,

plucked and left to soak its steel skin, which reacts to the heat of body and blood,

releasing warmth as mist in the distant eyes of the lustful. Though we are not near

anyone, it is also known we are no closer to each other. Coiled side to side in the back

seat, we come back to time and being, and uncurl back into the relative comforts of cloth;

not meaning to take liberty or risk the holes of awkward placement. Full bodied and

fresh from our return, I look away, toward the steamed window, and envisage the

distance as some form of love. The window wipes clear, its residue is water, condensed

on the inside, dripping down to the base of the frame. My finger remains moist, I rub

away the rest of the condensation, we look once again for the rainfall. Tomorrow is for

the mistakes. We begin to talk of the secrets we cannot tell any other, the language is

common, but not shared. There are churches somewhere a bit like this, the sanctioning

of a great exchange; the fluids and solids of today, sought to recompose as a price to be

paid. There are no promises, we each get what we have gave, letter for letter; everything

beneath a night sky, save the unicorn or the sleeping swan. As black is burnt into the

small eye of great mystery and its small black birds; looks carry out for the day to

forgive, for the night to take hold. So as the urge takes us, we await our turn, erecting

open forms one after another, to follow dark with night fall.