A tree,
It stands.

Ruler of its own universe woven through thickets of golden brown branches and emerald green leaflets.

Refuge for all and for none, offering solace from the cruel, hot sun.

Holding its arms in a triumphant stance, letting its leaves dance in the wind to their own tune of rustling and clapping.

A tree,
It feels.

It starts slowly at first- a slow seep, an unintelligible infection....

The glistening Mercury winds it's way through the veins that keep the being ruler of all and slowly infiltrates all the secret chambers hidden in knotholes centuries old.

Black like coal, white like fire, none can tell its appearance from anything but extraordinary and yet the tree does nothing. It waits.

A tree,
It wilts.

Ruler of the universe, it hands it's legacy off to the many saplings it has taught how to breathe from the grounds below it.

Refuge for none but itself, the emerald leaves lose their sheen and fall to the ground like a dancer who has twisted her appendage.

Reaching its arms towards the ground in a silent last prayer-last words- it caresses the faces of its children in the soil, giving a sweet silent goodbye.

A tree,
Crying tears of dripping silver onto its children below.

Then it is no more.

Mercury--evil--has won.

A stump.

But it's legacy lives on.

A sapling grows....and who knows.....the cycle begins again.

The night is young
new
beautiful
silent
joyous

It holds so many opportunities, and just as the flower who only opens her petals when the moonlight embraces them, so I am parallel.

I thrive in the night. It is my time, my hour, my seconds that only I have dominion over as I rise from the petals of my bed and am lit by the candlelight.

The waves of glow bounce off my nightgown slowly, slowly, and the undulating satin reverberates off my long legs as it dances with the faint breeze flowing through my room. I smile weakly.

Moving to the window, I can see for miles- a stretch of green quilting left there by God and his court, the velvet of the stitching vibrant in the light of the pale moon. It is unfinished.

The candle in the sill below me wanes slightly, and I blink. Reaching down, my fingers touch wax and guide it to my lips.

Fire reflects in my eyes the passion I have for such nights, for the silence that is filled with the deafening meekness of night sounds, for the musky, dark scent of my attic bedroom, from the taste of the faint dust lining the air.

I sigh, and smoke infiltrates my nostrils quietly, without invitation but without respite. The light is gone. My fingers quiver as I hold the wax, cold and lifeless now, and I sigh again. Quieter.

The night is brand new. I have only to light but one more match in order to explore it more fully. There is naught I cannot do when I hold in my hand this sheen that will light the recesses of the dark that haunt my room. My life. My eyes. And my fears.