The awakening. Bear and claw from slumber, under your cocoon of quilts, tawny and yawning, and into the sheep’s wool of fog. Poppy seeds of light sewn to the breast of daybreak, brambly brush bristles of forest combing the bridal veil of aurora, flushed rosy with frost.
Mt. Washington in flames. Puff. Puff. Puff. “You shouldn’t smoke,” I tell the tavern, “Not with timber lungs.” It slumps skinny-kneed, coughs up a confetti of embers black humored, celebrating.
I-83 South, tattooing the whites of my eyes with flecks of tiger gold, the sun gloved in thickly-netted forests, for a breath or seven, Hail Mary. House of prisms, embraced by the sun, lost friend, its warm lips press kisses to the wooly napes of our necks, the folds of our elbows. We peer to telescoping porches, pinned to row homes; bumbling ghosts untie their shoes on the staircases.
The stars hang you by your ankles, as Ólafur plays something on violin, something that sounds akin to a spoonful of nostalgia swallowed warm. Wisdom teeth tied to strings, toted like little forlorn dogs on cotton braids, tugging at their collars. “Oh, well. Four less teeth to floss.” (And I do detest flossing, my friend.)
Autumn is for seamstresses. Wispy clouds cross stitch the heavens, looms of birch trees delicately weave oriental rugs and carpets of saffron and scarlet, to soften the contours of cars soldiering on curbsides beneath. The knitted prairies, browned.
I am seven thousand three hundred and eighty nine sunrises, drunk on stardust, hallucinations swimming in the tow of tidal pools, blood moon, sanguine. We lunch on sunlight, misty daybreaks blue. Bushes gossip softly in a gust of wind, as we trudge up Hickory Avenue, where we orient ourselves by the salmon colored house, abandoned and stuffed with disembodied and lost dreams.
There’s a terrarium of flowers growing from your throat, pluck a few and make a bouquet for the kitchen table, your beside. A sight to behold, amidst the plethora of thumbed-through books, and frothy cups of half-drunken chocolate milk.
Dawn and dusk, the heartbeats, the ebbing breath of earth, comfort for the richest of souls. Pocketbooks are for petty hands. Hold my hand in yours, cathedrals of stories to warm the wicks of fingertips.
P.S. I’ve figuratively penciled in another post for Christmastime, my favorite holiday. Speaking of Christmas, I’ve begun a series of gift idea lists on Pinterest.
All photographs in this entry are by the marvelous Aëla Labbé, who was so wonderful to give me permission to post these and send them to me in the size I fancied. I am in the love with the bohemian beauty of her photographs, and the spirit that illuminates from them. This way to her Flickr photostream or buy some prints from her Etsy shop.
Title Quote: Ovid
Photo Credits: Aëla Labbé
