Dreaming of Jupiter

The evergreens stood like lampposts, carrying orbs of shadow instead of light. I could feel the cool air against my arms, hear the hum of cicadas as I lost form and figure to merge with the night. The sidewalk was a riverbed filled with currents of moonlight washing over my feet. I longed to see the moon, and as I turned my head to the sky, the moon was larger than I had ever seen. Every crater, every mark at once was visible to me like the lined face of a beloved grandmother. But the kiss of this beautiful, adoring face was a kiss of death. The evergreens seemed to stand taller still, trying to block the light from my eyes with their twisting branches. But one opening was enough. There was Jupiter, fixed on his throne, the golden bands of his cape circling slowly as he watched Saturn rise into view. And as my gaze fell upon Saturn’s rings of ice, whose revolution seemed so peaceful still, I remembered that in the age of gods, heroes towered like titans on the earth just as gods reigned over the heavens. But we were mortal now, and all I could think was, “this is death, this is death come to greet us, but I have to get home for dinner because Mama and Papa are waiting for me.” Indeed, we were only human, and to gaze upon those celestial bodies was to gaze upon our ruin. Their orbiting forms suddenly seemed so cold, so empty. They were gods, but they had never seen the warmth of home and now they had come to take mine. But Mama and Papa were waiting for me; perhaps they knew or perhaps they did not, but still, they were waiting for me. My feet carried me plashing through the tides of moonlight as I raced to be home by dinnertime.

Where the River and Harbor Meet

The waters are immortal in that old river that flows next to the ports where giants reign. The giants, for a few more centuries of existence, traded away their capacity to move, their ability to breathe. You see them now, towering over a landscape of city, sea, and sky, but you do not recognize them for who they used to be. The waters tease those silent creatures, tossing and turning, transforming foam into spray, dancing like flames as the giants stare ahead. “Immortality comes from movement,” they murmur as their tides sweep forth, “from flowing to the ends of the earth only to return to the same river, the same port. Standing still will preserve the form and kill the soul.” Silent, as always, the giants cannot even turn away but, thankfully, for the promise of a few decades, they abandoned their ability to hear long ago. Tired of teasing, the tides withdraw to the deeper sea, like children to grandparents, starlings to their nest. “Let the moon talk some sense into those creatures,” they laugh, “let us go farther off to play.”

Watching Sentinel

Guard in the night, framed by the caress of the silver moon, I watch you sit straight, still as a nutcracker, quiet as the sky itself in the depths of winter. Your thoughts are impenetrable, obscure, hidden like the expression on your face as you sit with your back turned away from me. I am but an ornament in a room far away, the long and lonely walk of a corridor away, submerged in the ink of midnight while you bathe in a pool of the moon. Won’t you turn to me? Won’t you come into the haven of these sheets where you will no longer have to wait alone? You see, Sentinel, the one for whom you wait will not come. In a single bound, Sentinel leaps off the ottoman, slinks into a corner to watch me. I hold out my hand, brushing my fingers together like wind chimes, but to no avail; not all cats respond to that silent call. When you have mourned in your quiet way for as long as you need, as long as you wish, Sentinel, you will find the space next to me warm and open still.