mussels for strength
clams for silence
oysters for pearls

no deep dive
just settle
still

reach out
nourish
maintain

there is enough for everyone
always more on the Way

silver skin
rainbow sides
parrots with fins
perform
a chaotic splash
slam dance
to the distracted
observer

hold down the ruckus
will you

to the patient eye
choreographed synchronicity
fractal'd patterns
delight and picque

I've seen that somewhere before

ripple. spray and wake
compose a symphony
No Cage could mimic
but it is fun
to try

TRY

enter the serpent
of both land and sea

the predator is essential
but this one has grown
too hungry; too imposing
for its ecosystem

it consumes
not just decay but promise
beauty, love, and flow

turns pasture and forest
to a wired patchwork

the understory to
a networked path
for its sole
slithering

always
the mother
of everything
watches

she is loathe to interfere
with the patterns of eternity
ALL are her children
even the rotund python

but his weight can no longer be born
by mycelium and the little, silent things
nor by his brethren or prey

he is most powerful when coiled
most dangerous at the head and fangs
but behind the neck and at the throat
it takes but a decided twist

the constrictor is now a feast
for those he would starve and feed upon
his sole slithering now contained
within the mother's memory

[Sacred Pond]

white snake flees splashing
I flee white snake; empty
sacred pond remains

There is a Mantra Ray in My Living Room

There’s a manta ray floating in my living room
Peaceful spectre, inhabitant of the deep marine
There’s a manta ray floating in my living room
Rippling above my arm-chair and its matching settee

There’s a mantra ray in my living room …

Never slithered a step through the slime, the soil, or sand
Surpassing bipedalism without a scale to spy
Sea to air, a limbless evolutionary leap
Featherless, she effortlessly swims through the sky

There’s a manta ray floating in my living room
Her vocal chords are forming; to sing she’s beginning
There’s a manta ray floating in my living room
Soon she’ll be sharing all the secrets of her being

There’s a mantra ray in my living room …

But then ...

Shutters open on an angry crowd below
A dark sky is rendered with a flashing streak of light
Thunder echoes with the mob’s curses and their pleas
Accord with the manta, replaced with fugue, fear, and strife

There WAS a manta ray floating in my living room
She’s long since departed with the wind and the torrents
There was a manta ray floating in my living room
But now just a carelessly flipped page, of a lost verse

There was a manta ray in my living room

***

Words and Images are my own.

Sole Slithering was first published today on the HIVE blockchain.

[Sacred Pond] is published in Tattoo and There is a Manta Ray in My Living Room is published in Monsters, Avatars, & Angels.

Click on any title below to further explore and support my writing.