a mourning's morning

another innocence arising day.

another silenced tolling
of
precious
irretrievable treasures

ripped from failed humanity's
profit mined embrace.

*

Peter Panned (the very latest breathy bits)

*

passing under the taut skins, the disturbing shadow crept closer.

wide eyed mesmerised, for a breathless space of graspless moments, unnoticed by a hectic to and froing mother, Buffalo Heart watched in silence.

but, there at the back of his uncle’s lodge, when the palpable malevolence riveting his focus brushed against the tassels of his closest moccasin, something within could bear it no longer.  and endeavouring to live up to his given name, that lonesome legacy of a barely clasped father, he closed his eyes and stamped.

“try not to kick up dust, darling.  our guests are almost here.”

“but if they weren’t invited, how do you know?”

“because your uncle said so.”

“oh.”

girding himself to face it again, he tried to wrap it in his thoughts; this animated animus; so unexplained, yet oddly restrained; a faceless and traceless shape retained; seemingly groundless, but somehow resolute; a sensable incomprehensible darkling of matter folding into itself.  and lighting upon the off chance of a gone too vivid daydream, hope plucked its courage, flashing open those large brown eyes.  but there that disconcerting presence of absence was, ever so slowly, subtly, backing hostility out of the tipi, just as the big people out in front began to shuffle in.

and there they were, timely strangers, expectantly divined, filling the dense propped air with oohs and aahs and chuckled delight as they bobbed amidst the utterly fantastic hanging garden, its incessantly twirling owl wings and amulets, pipes and shields and drying herbs, purring flutes and rainbow tinted arrows, framing the moving entrance of the spirited lodge.

receding into the safety of more customary shadows, the pangs of youth pondered the frustratingly predictable unfathomable waywardness of reasoning olders and the unprecedented conundrum of chillingly eerie unattached shades.

attended by sable three legged Wolf, He Walks Lightly led the lost boys in, and with a wordless wave of a power riding arm, pointed out the bolstered and blanketed spaces tucked about the jungle blossomed progeny prepared by trust’s consulting sister and the growing things vespering bee whispered mediation of the magnificently wrinkled help meet of Two Snow Moons.

Peter lit up.  “you expected us!”

“ex-pec-ted,” smiled the foresighted host, all seven dangling crystals fleetingly alight.

Chimeree was first to settle in place, giant red paws aligning like the sphinx, a contentedly curling tail instantly sweeping away the fading reflections of a buffalo heart’s haunts.

the niño perdido puertorriqueño sat with Sun Setting, still in their smitten company, crowned in emerald feathers and a hoodied beaver pelt, just on the lion’s left.

blushing Jonathan took the seat next, trying to smooth stubbornly rumpling mouse tufted hair, his tattery top hat having tottered off on the reeling way in.

shakily erect, the brittle wisened shepherd of once upon a time wanderers of the plains, mysteriously transplanted en masse, involuntary immigrants in ever’s never landing, Two Snow Moons Rising Up Over the Mountains settled tattered tendons in the wisdom preserving northern seat on the steadying arm of Nighthawk, his rivers unbanded, resplendent in jet.

the Tachibana twins in their white skins, drooping eared rabbit and arctic fox, stood out in riveting contrast beyond the raven scout.

and last came lean Antelope, even seated, towering above them all.

like an empathic mother hen, Swan Signing hovered in the thrice pawed path of a pacing familiar, panting his devotion, skirting the twirled edges, across from her shadowed son.  unsparing caring, the shared space seemed to lighten.

Two Snow Moons held up the time out of mind grandly feathered pipe. “friends,” he said, using the Englisher the holy man had taught him, by way of uncluttered commencement; respect reflected engaging his smile, so wanting in pretence, needing nought else.

and then he passed the handed down gift of sacred speaking to the flying one, doffing his feathered cap and dipping that dashing scarlet wave before taking it into his flight wise hands.  and barely lifting off the earth, he changed direction four times, sending the scented puffs east, south, west and north, for all our relations, the many and the one, to deeply breathe in; seeping in verily the out and the in.  and then, reflectively intent, he descended again.

something akin to pride in his friend gleamed in the searching, preternaturally open eyes of He Walks Lightly as each consenting host sounded their solemn ‘hnn.’

Two Snow Moons waved a quavery arm about the gathered circle and Everett, that rather more thoughtful twin, jumped up and brought the awesome feathered receptacle to Chimeree’s snout.  smiling at the clever eyes beneath those foxy ears, the lion lightly inhaled.

and then he sneezed.

and hearing the laugh pass freely from host to host, the etiquette uncertain lost boys sheepishly appended theirs, while the pipe continued its sincerity wreathing rounds.

and then the holy man stood.  and Wolf curled round his feet.

and that’s when the dream began.

* ~ *

the branches rustled their breathing leaves, and all of them were talking;

(stalking, talking.)

‘Swan Signing, where is Swan Signing?’

or was that murmuring vented by the wind?

but the scene changes, just as the birds chime in.

starfish on the beach, sparkling as their namesakes, under an enveloping velveteen sky.

the fins of dolphins dancing.

the waves of constellations, enhancing purple depths in destiny’s prancing.

gulls on the wing, aligning their vees, to ache evolving sunsets, miles away.

then handfuls of kernels, the seedings of anxious life
scatter in a torrent of dead shredded leaves,

falling on a threading river borne of sorrow’s eaves.

and of a sudden, eclipsing the tiding glimmers,
overtaking that rolling riveting scene
on its cloudless moon blissed
undulating surface,

trees of the sea,
shoot up from the shuddering
of crevices beneath;

Jack’s beanstalk gone berserk, breaking out of Davey’s locker;

an unbridling of the phylums, transcendently unsheathed;

an orchestral fantasia of seaweed reeds,

trilling every woodwind note,
reeling all the sounding spokes
in the cell spun sun begun
life revolving spectrum;

branching past the borders,

resorting all the orders,

in dreamtime unfolding,
the blessed reach
of jungle creep

flowering the sea.

and there on the moving stems,
countless wee crawlers
wriggling the tiniest of legs,

laying their crying eggs,

in a dainty sympathy,
a gone tectonic empathy…

erupting a clamouring kin churned din

welling up with stones intoned
from
time’s infections keened,

tearings reared by honings steered

in fragile havens weaned,

rejections, feared and thereby sown,

clutchings owned
and
pain retained,

washed by the gentlest
harmonies of rain,

reduced to elementary
urges to explain.

glosses of mosses, and scores of spores,
the delicate bells in Echo’s shells

coaxing that harbouring
watered forest floor,

(adoration at its core,)

fording and undressing
(in chorus caressing)
the pores of more,

opening seclusion’s secretive doors,

relieving all those vacuums
nature so abhors;

tremulous glissandos of air surfed sylphs,
ricocheting out of volcanic rifts,
fledging continents,

(yearnings set adrift,)

flapping frail rows of tremolo wings,
patched cleavings preconceived
in stinging’s rounded rings,

the perchings of claws,
the urgencies gnawed,

the twining of necessities,
necessarily flawed.

and each of them,
all of them,

became the voice of one.

~*~

and staring into astonished eyes,
each ember in the circle
trussed by trust,

(mirror and seer in selfsame frame)

suddenly awoke.

*

then Emma closed the treehouse door.  and they were almost off; save for an uncertain crossing without; a dithering of aardvarks, clumped about the knotted stoop.

“but,” demurred Skunk, in the sheltered lee of that massive hugging trunk, “do you think we should have left them a note?”

a ray of sunlight poked the fanning green dazzle, glancing several orchids in their delicate swings.

“i don’t see why.  if they wonder where we are, the kindly ancient tree will find a way to explain.”

chatter drifted down from a dizzying troop of monkeys clambering the highway up above.  and in some resonant niche betangling the tapestry, a loon began to laugh.

everyone nodded.  and that might have been the reason a knuckled handful of slender roots suddenly uplifted, were we inclined to breezily construe a quivered concerting of a conscious wave.

Emma paused to shrug, while Pigley Wiggles and Michael blithely replied.

before Skunk could comment, the dwarf cassowary darted into view.  “oh!” he started, white tuft ruffling.  “are you coming too?”

“hmm, homm, humm, that sentence needs finishing,” observed that curious creature, nosing up his plated beak.

a spider monkey looped down to grab one of the baskets, and Pigley Wiggles squealed, just as an elaborate creeping vine started to skitter over everyone’s feet.

Michael giggled.  “why, the dark mushroom forest, of course!”

“very well, then.”  Emma rolled her eyes, waiting for the last bee sentry to pass.

and looking vaguely unsettled, the hairy feathered flightless bird lurched into line.

*

barely making a ripple, in lieu of the expected splash, the corpse was gone in a liquid gulp.

Smee sighed.

absently tugging a golden earring, Dirk the Lurk brushed his tattered bespattered heart and reverently bowed.

bleary teared Baltazar’s lifted tricorne hat shrugged off on the first unlevel deck, exposing that appalling queasy dent to the fierce downbeat of blazing sun.

like a droll beanpole, hung over the Resolute’s eternally anchored side, emaciated arms creasing their stitchery of Sumatran tattoos, Cornelius muttered, “someone ought to say somethin.’”

“i expect they ought to,” seemingly concurred Nicolas, a sly glint in those beady eyes.

Smee’s wee ones flashed.

“enough of that, you!” erupted Phineas.  “there’s no call for suspectin’ foul play.”

“yet,” smirked the wolfish one.

Raveneau the Knife cleared a gravelly throat.  “he were on his last legs, years in and out ago.  somethin’ musta’ startled him in his sleep, see?  and then his wicked ticker plumb guv’ out.”

Hendrik grunted.

propping the mahogany sheen of a useless limb, conscripted off the bruted shores coasting Mozambique, the left laying hold of tanly weathered spirit spattered gunwale, Daniel Little leaned into the barest suggestion of a breeze and, floating somewhere nigh, curiosity alit on that winsome smile.  “say, has anyone asked the lad if he saw anything?”

“which lad?” retorted Raveneau.  “Singapore Sammy’s the one that stumbled on him.  says he were just crumpled there on his bunk, peaceful as me’ grandmother’s dearie old thighs.”

brushing past the antic guffaws of doubled over Cornelius, Dirk the Lurk launched pale freckled arms in the silent air.  “id-yat!  the one that escorted that French devil about, of course!  the fey cabin mite.  but seein’ as he can’t speak, i don’t see the point.”

“well that’s hardly a surprise,” quipped the ‘Keg Leg.’  “t’aint the only one that’s managed to get past our cutpurse lurker’s clueless leer, now is it?”

“what’s that supposed to mean?”

“never mind,” barked Nicolas Black.  “try and stick to the point, however spry it be.  open them ears for an unsuspectin’ lark!  first, all our lot’s fond memories of a whole bloomin’ night get mislaid somehow, apparently on account of cannabis induced bliss.  and now Blind Etienne up and dies.  i tells ya’, there’s more to this than meets the sorry eye.”

Raveneau remained nonplussed.  “and whose aye was that?”

“hush!” quoth Phineas.  “someone fetch me Pieter.  i’ll ask ‘im meself.”  his huge bulk came about.  “i s’pose, our darlin’ Dirk, ya’ ain’t happened to notice ‘im reading our lips in all this bleedin’ time?”

“not in particular, no.”

“it’ll nae be easy to retrieve him,” cast askance a wry-faced Smee.  “the cap’n sent him on an errand along about dawn.”

“oh, is that so?” simpered Nicolas, mopping courtesy’s mocking, hirsute hand on holstered hip.

“where’d he send ‘im to?” asked Phineas at once.

“off hand i don’t know.  i wasn’t privy to his whim.  something about verifying terrain he’s been ruminating on.  somewhere in those southwest inlets, i expect.”

the ‘Keg Leg’ tilted his head.  “what, on his own?”

Nicolas practically snarled.  “you always know.”

“you mean, for buried treasure?” moodily perplexed Baltazar.  “but it’d be all soggy!  them are wetlands.”

“of course not.  he sent him with Singapore Sammy.  i’ve taken to schooling him, you see, on how to oar about.  turns out, our little Eastern acrobat’s quite the prodigy.  they’ll be fine.”

“how conveniently consistent,” murmured Nicolas.

“i believe the word you want is waterlogged,” amended a giggling, out of breath Cornelius.

“not if them redskins get ‘em.”

Phineas shook his weighty head.  “when, in all this bleedin’ time, have they troubled us?”

Baltazar bridled.

but Smee chimed in.  “without our starting it, of course.”

and then the umbrage shrugged.  “that’s besides the point.”

Hendrik grunted again.

and then, a barely breathed “aye” faintly protruded from a stifled sigh.

“of course,” nodded Phineas.  “of course it is.”

*

- Evan Hawthorn, the firth of September, 2024