I sit here by my window
It’s slightly cracked
The wind outside sounds frigid
& the array of snowdrifts remind me of
the weather from when I was a child.
It’s crazy to think how the universe
works with my being.
I’m in a renewal stage in which
I need to tend to my inner child
& the world entices it.
I miss the calm
the silence
I need to indulge in that more
I felt childlike & awakened, tested, walking through those knee high snow drifts.
It was exhilarating in a sense.
Playing through those snow drifts
on the rez as a child, it seemed like a
treacherous wonderland.
Now those words are each of there own.

I am sand - drifting formlessly, settling briefly;
dusting edges traced clean by housekeeping’s judicious forefinger.

I am sand - black with iron and ****** wrath;
shattering glassily against a wine-stained ceiling.

I am sand - my trespasses turned to pearl;
rippled and flurrying, wedged between sandal-clad toes.

I am sand - porous with desire yet disarmed by possibility;
a fortress on the brink of invasion by the sea.

I am sand - recalled to the desert, claggy with melancholy;
a loping caravan of travail, westward bound.

I am sand - measureless and infinitely uncontainable;
sifting from hour to hour...and life to life.

The lid of a stained glass bottle,
leaves a burning sensation in my palm.
What was I hoping for?
Surely, this message will wrinkle-
my painful words silently drifting away.
And all that'd be left was my starving soul,
craving to be found someday.

I'm just a little afraid
That forever will end
And our love fades to dim
And the spark gets cold
As we grow
Knowing we are both still in love
But the fun of our love dies
And we drift away
Into the ocean of tears
Built by our hearts
Because we didn't care enough
To fight for each other
The effort needed to make
Was to much
So instead it toppled our undeniable love
And further away we go
As the waves carry us on
Ignoring the drift wood to build a boat

You ask for where my destination is,
I smile, but not answer,
My heart is at leisure.

A man on his boat,
Just like an immortal.
His melodic aged voice sung,
“Up is heaven, down is earth,
Where the wind blows,
Is where I go.”

My palms in my pockets jingle
the keys to my cave as I make
my way to wherever I’m going.
My legs propel me, and my feet
dodge cast-off gum and dog dung.

And on my head rests a fishbowl.

An extra load on my skull,
but I don’t mind. I rather
like this bowl. It gives me
a barrier, and though thin,
the glass has yet to crack.

I hear my voice resound,
bouncing around the tiny
space, and I smell my breath,
minty fresh and foggy, and
through the fog the world and
its creatures are phantoms.

When I’m addressed, it’s like
floating in frigid freshwater
as they call for me from
the sheet of ice above.
They suspect I’ve lost
my soul in the fishbowl,
yet as year after year
goes by, I feel just fine.

I am an astronaut taking
a space walk, drifting around
and watching the universe
unfold under a sheet of glass.

And when I close my eyes,
I am in a womb, or a coffin,
and I often can’t tell the
difference, nor find much
of a reason to tell.


-
by Aleksander Mielnikow