The stars are still not singing, but he hardly notices, head tilted back, eyes closed, listening to the song in his memory, instead.
It is an almost unlooked for grace.
He knows that.
He remembers that.
He sleeps, and--
So here I am
wakes to the shore, sky still overcast.
and every attempt
It is not raining.
is a wholly new start,
There are no feathers.
and a different kind of failure
The sand is cold between his toes.
There is a rock on the beach, large and jagged and rough.
A man sits at its base, smiling, teeth bright in a dark face.
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
"You are learning, I think, the thing I have always known. It is almost impressive."
He snorts unintentionally and takes a few steps forward, crouching down.
And found and lost again and again
"Almost. But you know as well as I that there is little difference between us, in the end."
A lifetime burning in every moment
His fingers draw looping whorls in the sand.
"Clever enough for going on with, I think. Or so it would seem, yes? If you are for choosing."
And not the lifetime of one man only
The other man laughs, head tilted back, throat exposed to the fading light.
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
"I am ready. But you knew that. Some things don't change as much as it seems."
The first man stands, leaving the complicated loops where they are, holding out one hand to the other.
We must be still and still moving
"It is a thing I had almost expected, perhaps."
"Perhaps. It matters less than it did, once. "
The other man laughs again, taking his hand and pulling himself to his feet. The loops and whorls do not survive his movement.
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
"Still. We are agreed, I think."
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
And quickly, calmly, he releases the first man's hand and reaches up, fingers cupping his face. He smiles once, wry and bright, and then his hands twist, the crack of snapping bone unmuffled by the relentless pulse of the ocean.
The body crumples, falling to the sand.
Raven looks down, head tilted, black eyes bright and unblinking.
Then he shifts, leaning down, fingers digging at the slack face.
He lifts first one eyeball , then the other, and pauses, studying his corpse.
Considering.
"The rest will keep, I think. There is time."
He pops both eyeballs in his mouth, throat working as he swallows, then stands, the movements quick and oddly graceful.
He looks back only once, laughter ringing high and bright in the damp evening air.
The stars are singing.
Raven hums along, coattails flaring out behind him as he walks.
In my end is my beginning.
They look like wings. |
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