Apricus came upon a beauty far younger than he,
she lay in the forest glade like a daisy among the weeds.
Her body wet from the emanation of the morning light
it coursed through gaps of green in the furrowed canopy
and wrote atop her flesh with the knowledge
of our ancient galaxy.

The fragile flower insisted she travel with the poet
and Apricus could hardly argue against her plea,
he took her hand, yet she held tighter
as they walk beneath the dogwood trees.
The buds of spring began to blossom
and blooms of white hung like gowns among the leaves.
He faintly heard the sound of church bells ringing
calling from a far off village he could not see.

Not yet ready to return to the societal herd
Apricus stepped back, his eyes turned crooked
looking towards the wilderness from whence he came
but her touch had taken hold.
He realized now to break from her
was to break apart from something whole
and thus he spoke

We learn when leaving those we love,
even as our paths have crossed and intertwined
that no matter how hard we try, our destinations,
they are different sometimes.

The desert gradually turned to a grassy thicket
tamarack branches turn towards the fleeting dusk
above, ancient starlights fade in cimmerian skies
their ghostly glow choked by the sullen silhouettes
of churning charcoal clouds against the abyss.
The world feels as though she is being devoured
by nothing and emptiness.

Again the tortured-self awakes inside of Apricus
wrestling with its bindings merely out of gall.
It elicits ache in the belly of its captor,
the kind that only heartbreak makes inside us all
and once the tantrum cease,
it laugh a little before it speak

The darkness comes, not for you and I alone
but in the end all life is its sacrifice,
why struggle any longer to change the minds of sheep?
Has the battle not hardened our flesh, sharpened our teeth,
has it not made us hungry for what lesser men eat?

A thunderhead above him began to coil
tightening its hold around the moon,
each rotation siphoned the lunar light
till the well traveled soil of the trail
turn to a thin brush, then into a heavy wood.

Ask not if you shall stray from your path
rather ask if you will have the constitution
to find your way back in the black
of a stormy night.

The wind swept across sheering dunes of white sand
the way certain kinds of dancers sway
like flames
The way young children often play
free of their father’s shame

It filled his lungs with the fire of his innocence
and the longer he inhaled the larger he grew
no sooner had he rivaled mountains
did he hear the cries of his former self
this being bound in chains spoke thus

Be wary Apricus,
many great men have had their heads over hills
and their fates delivered them to the stake.
Are you willing to burn, to crumble into ash
and return to the dirt of mother earth
for all that you believe?

Broken by doubt,
the mountain becomes a man again
but the heart of a giant still swelled inside of him
It raged against his fragile frame like a violent slave
until it grew weary of its own restless thunder
and there it sunk into the deep,
the deep frore of a wintry slumber

Sleep for now my lively child
for the hearts of giants reside inside of all men
but first they must learn to love themselves
before the giants can walk the earth again