Creature Speak

There is a shadow of melancholy overlaid upon me like a second skin.  I don’t know how to shed it.

I could be happy as a Panda in a bamboo forest, or joyful as a Golden Retriever playing fetch with a companion, but always the tinge is there.

A constant storm brewing in the cauldron of the sky, ready to break upon land.  Clouds are always there to answer the sun when he shines too confidently.

Is not the rain a gift to quench our dry mouths on days when the air becomes a dragon’s breath?

Is not a patch of shade from a tree a wondrous reprieve when our sheathes blush and threaten scarlet in the searing light?

Do not the roots of the Oak and the Willow travel deep under ground, where darkness is all there is?  

Their arms could never reach for the firmament and drink of the day if it weren’t for legs firmly planted in the dank earth.

Do we not take cover in the wind, cloaking ourselves in dusk and velvet, soft silhouettes for our delicate surfaces?

Do not our hearts and lungs and guts need containment in our bodies, a veil of obscurity to keep our fragile instruments safe?  A cave to hide our fruits and fortune?

Our blood tricks the eyes when lumens penetrate and trade blue for red.

Colors are not always honest when they change in the light. Sense impressions we name when matter reflects the waves  

Our eyes cannot find the violet living in the sky.  We cannot see the red the ocean swallows when she’s hungry for love and health and passion adequate to save herself.

Darkness lives to give us nocturnal rest, and Winter freezes certain seeds that they may soften to sprout when Spring returns.

To grieve like a river that feeds the forest and the birds.  To let sadness be heard that it may move and flow and bring life to us when we let go.

To relinquish the sun for the dance of the Moon Queen, adorned with stars that were always there, waiting for eventide that we might see them.  

To take courage and find freedom when our eyes seem closed but are really open.  For maybe we see some things more clearly then.

Copyright © Sheyorah Naify, 2021