Minds claim to know that which is not.
Foundations... they are broken and they rot.
From the rubble is found a truth stronger than life;
To understand that knowing is nothing but
Standing on our understanding.
Now we 'K'now

There she laid down her wearied head
To rest one final time under the shade
‘O the wiry willow

Beneath, her thoughts spun webs of distant times past
Where honeysuckle wrapped tendrils round
The rugged walnut

Smells of various mountain flowers after a fresh rain
Accompanied the familiar tune of birds singing
An ode to the swaying oaks  

A soft breeze warmed the chill of biting winters cold
Sending shivers down her frail frame
Skeletal like the barren birch

She blinked in time to barking angry squirrels
Displeased with the lack of fruit
Left by the poor pawpaw  

Vision, already blurred by cataract, began to fade
As the mountain consumed the setting sun
The light filtered by forlorn firs

It was time.  

Long had she waited to join those that had gone before
Patient to be reunited with her love long lost
During the spring of blooming dogwood

Distant, she could see him, strong and proud
With effort she reached out to her beloved
A mighty hickory  

Exhaling, she breathed her last.

After her life, Diana, goddess of the forest
Let grow a grove of various mountain trees
Surrounding a single rhododendron  

Her life, a monument to the nature she loved.

Fireflies dance beneath the moonlit sky
Their firey tails blazing thousands of suns
Flashing in harmonious rhythm
To a song known only to spirits of the forest
Where trees root themselves to a verdelant chorus
Swaying in soft waltz as the wind caresses green boughs
Groaning under the weight of the starry firmament

<A reflection from above to what is below>

An infinity of dazzling diamonds winking in starlight
Tune themselves to the melody of distant earth
Where moon bathes the world in grey washed relief
Illuminating the new born fawn that prances in sync
To his mother's cautious attention
Her eyes reflecting love in full as Luna guards her young
Beneath the light of midnight

Behind her, a chirping symphony of raucous crickets
Reached a vibrating crescendo which echoes across the land
A ringing accompaniment to the bass dravel of the wayward toad
Whose thump, thumping excites the prowling fox
To pounce about in a furry pirouette in an attempt to seize the treble
Of the screeching barn owl that cuts through the night
Spinning in a controlled dive bomb of deadly talons
Searching for their late night victim whose screams
Provide the lyrical movement to which nature plays master
To the goings on of life, beyond the light of the day

In the distance, a lone whippoorwill cries in anguish
As the sun rises and dawn brings an end to his song

Whip
Whip
Whippoorwill

I know the power of the rising tide
For beneath my feet rests the shifting sands of time
Always ebbing and flowing the water dost erode
Each wave tugging and pulling
The tiny grains betwixt my toes

As the surf rises my foundations wither
Casting evil eye to swollen sea my thoughts swell bitter
When my balance is interrupted by systematic crashes
Gradually displacing and replacing
My position along its axis

Until finally I am interred within that salty tomb
Buried under heavy weight of time ne’er to be exhumed
Less the tide decide to recede and expose
The monument to a man
Who had once claimed to know

Infinity stares back from the dark recess of obscurity
The eye that I see staring in the mirror
A faded juxtaposition reversing my faded reflection
So that I might see the me everyone else sees

Aghast at my ghastly facade
Hands trembling at the realization that this was a hallucination
And reality was just a blink away
The slow drip from the nasal cavity nauseated me
Brown bile seeped from my lips
Dribbling down my chin as two snakes tangled
Slowly suffocating me as they began constricting
Causing blood vessels in my eyes to pop from the pressure

Floating black dots consumed my sight
Tarantulas creeped and crawled upon my skin
Fine hairs tickling the tip of my nose
As it began to melt under each curved claw
Dripping in time with the sickening drops
As I gasped for air in a panicked frenzy
Vigorously washing with water in a vain attempt
To rest reality back from the grips of delusion

This time the mirror stared back
Silence... Utter silence... Then sorrow...
Crimson tears streaked down my face at the realization
That I had somehow become lost along the way of life
I had lost the I in me, deluded to the point I blinded myself to see
Anything to attempt to cover up the pain
Of being less than that man in the mirror I see
Knowing his heart has a limitless potential
That I have caused to clot in hard callouses
Self sabotaging any hope I have to get away from it all
And achieve anything of worth

I scream at myself
Wavering between laughing and sobbing
The glass shatters

There I am in pieces
Each shard a mime of a different time
Razor sharp portals

To who I was
And the fear and loathing
That led me to where I am

<Frothy waves coated the slippery rock
Seagulls gulled annoying caws
A ship had wrecked upon the beach>  

There he sat
Dazed and confused
Trying to grasp his surroundings
“Thou art alive,” he said to himself.
“Not for long,” replied the sea.
Fear told him to run
Reason told him to listen
Experience forced him to say
“It is true that thou hast lived many a year,
Ye foul beast,
Many a day hast thou slaved upon thine waves.
Just look upon my hands and ye shall see
The scars that time and ye have left upon me.”
He waved his hands in violent gesture
Caulouses cracking in dehydration
Pain a parasitic friend
The sea casually mocking him
“Oh, but I know of thee.
I have looked after thee from afar for many a sun,
And moons have bled and stars have fallen
That cannot give number to the times I held thee afloat
When otherwise thou wouldst have sunk into my depths.”
He laughed and his body ached
A grin twisted his wrinkled facade
Gazing around at the irony of the god
He said,
“Yet here thou sittest, surrounded by thee on all sides
Accursed by thy blasted brethren baking thee alive
And thine water be poison that I cannot drink
Parched with a thirst thou canst not sate
If thou be so benevolent,
Why must thee be so prevalent?”
At this a rogue wave rushed high
A not-so-veiled threat flattening him in proscinesis
“Little man, knowest thou not of my scope?
Thou hast sailed me across the constellations,
Beyond Terra and Firma
Riding Pegasus to Orion
With Polaris as thy guide
Across the entirety of my body have I graced thee
With nigh a swell to impede thee.”
He paused in recollection
Remembering hard days and nights
Pulling his oaken oars with little resistance
To his taskmasters chiming rhythmic timing
“Row… row… row”
A tear rolled down his face to join the sea
“Then why hast thou stranded me here,
Alone to die,
Ostracized from thine protective *****?
What sin hast relegated me to divine flotsam,
Cast away and destined to be forgotten?”
With a splash that could be translated as a laugh
The sea sighed as the tide began to recede
“We all have our limits, little man.
Mine is the earth that bars my current
And thine the body which rides it.
It seems we have both reached our ends
Mine the land
And thine thy life.
It is time that we say goodbye and part ways
Mine to my depths
And thine to thy death.”
With a wash he looked down
Only now realising the ghostly cast of his weathered skin
Slowly he stood and with a few tentative steps
Descended into the God who had taken his life
In exchange for his freedom  

<Frothy waves coated the slippery rock
Seagulls gulled annoying caws
A ship had wrecked upon the beach>

There were no survivors