Spray from the coast, a gentle mist that dulls the senses, the buzzing dragonflies
notwithstanding, the colors recede, our memories subdued,
the grey pulls the lids over our eyes, sends us on our way,
until we meet again anew, as lovers do, like stories playing out
in the gulfs of time. In the sky above, cloud sentinels whisper stories of
an era gone, erased, absconded, lost in the currents that cultivate the isles —
they watch, keep guard alongside the streams below,
watch and take heed, keepers of a legacy gilded in chants whispered,
in pride displaced, a history appropriate to faces on a distant mount,
culture absorbed, integrated, embezzled, exploited, incorporated by the ambitious
and their advancing machine, the young, effervescent, impersonal, brutal handshake and smile,
life changing, evolving, paving the way for rising beasts,
their infant days, their ever-growing appetites and screams, beehive mind and a trillion stingers
clearing the way for a dead ringer for madness, change and perseverance, ongoing revolution,
freedom and oppression, spearhead and winger — for a fiery
rearrangement of archive and love, lost lore, for better or worse, a flurry of ongoing dreams
in the haze. The spray settles on our precious histories, our frayed decks, penetrating
the varnish of our legends, adding urgency to the norm, and the world is transformed
every day, a puzzle of beauty founded on the simple premise of complexity,
on the principle of change, the mist now receding, melting, the sky opening up,
the streams perpetual, unrelenting, a world in transition, hell or high water, come what may