The Non-Ending

Once there was a rosy child, red as roses

And she gamboled on green hills

She gamboled in the free hills,

Dotted with honeysuckle, violet delights

She drank from cool springs and laughed, she

Laughed to be alive in the glorious morning.

And when the sun reached its peak, still

She smiled, her hands became stronger,

Dropping seeds from overflowing pockets

She planted unashamedly and smiled.

And when the cool spread indigo veils over

Her pleasant frolics, she rolled in dusky pastures

And lay with arms outspread. She dusted off

Her wounded clothing, and sang, sang to be alive

In the silver shade.

And when Night fell, she slept

She slept under the sailing stars

Under the moon, humming her eternal mantras,

On the free hills she slept, and dreamt only of waking.

But the sleep only deepened, her visage became

Restless, she could not find her way out

Of the labyrinths that staved off the free hills of 

Her song.

She woke at last, like Ariadne’s lover emerging

On a birthing canal of string she shook 

Away her uneasy sleep.

No longer rosy –she saw her strong hands golden brown

Burned brown by the star’s fickle light.

And her scars sang with her as she toiled 

In the gleaming day, in the golden fields she

Toiled and sang.

She sang for the pain and the health

And she sang for joy, pure joy

To be awake and toiling in fields of white wheat.

And she grasped a red rose, as she sang

And the thorns made her bleed, so she smiled.

She smiled to be alive, thick with coursing red life.

And cool water coursed over her

And she was clean. And she laughed, lathered

In beauty and hardship –she laughed to be pure

Golden in the full-blown sunlight.

But the sun did not set, that golden day, and the shadows of sleep

Did not fall gently as settling ash.

The moon did not rise, a phantom from a brown grave.

The sun drained the blood from her body

And careened through bruises of clouds, mottled purple.

It was red, red as roses and it shook the heavens and it 

Shook the free hills as it fell. 

And the stars followed, scowling stars, thin as razors.

And they grazed her cheek as they passed.

And they burned her strong hands

Charred her golden hands as they passed.

And she ran, but she couldn’t run.

And she screamed but she couldn’t sing.

And she wept, she wept to be alive in the time of fire.

She wept for her hands, black as sin.

And she wept for her face, pale as a death delayed.

And she wept to linger in the valley of shadows

To linger and see the roses gray with age

Dripping mildew and 

She wept to be alone with the chaff that scratched her mottled skin

In the whimpering wind. She wept for the free hills

Dark with shame.

*This is a poem I wrote just after I was molested. It basically describes how I felt... I might write a second part about how things turn up. =]