LEO PASSIMUS REMEMBERS HIS FIRST VOYAGE, by Danny Adams
Believe my words, I tried the settled path —
You, my wife of raven hair to make the night jealous,
Our daughter and two sons all with matching sapphire eyes,
Books to comfort restlessness with distant knowledge
— But my young feet would never give me rest!
Every wind carried scents of amber music
With half-heard whispers from oracles built of broken rocks.
Caravans across the worlds bound me with the Bard’s Curse
Tempting me to join them at the crossroads.
* * *
My disobedient pen disappoints the exotic paintings of my memories:
How to describe my mediating words
Opening the dialogue between Fire and Water
Judged by black doves tugging at their beards?
Or the tremor in my hand withholding
Water begged for by a Phoenix
While she possessed no memory of resurrection?
Barbarians spoke the tongues of angels
While golden palaces washed away in tides
Of time disguised as the melted sky.
Obvious lands with hidden names
Protecting treasures glimpsed only from the sides of closed eyes,
Winged wooden chests filled with sprouts from the World Tree,
Floating islands built from a single grain of sand,
Silver spirals greater than the tallest temples
To watch your life turn upon —
But you, my love, at every sunset
Your hair spilled across the world’s shoulders,
Crafting night.
* * *
Will I take any more voyages?, you asked
Before I left on this ill-starred sail.
No, tonight my wanderlust is smoke
Here many trips removed, stranded —
Wishing I’d made you the only oracle I desired.
___________________________________________________________
Danny Adams is the co-author, with the late Philip Jose Farmer, of the short novel The City Beyond Play (PS Publishing, 2007). Some of his shorter work has appeared or is forthcoming in Abyss & Apex, Asimov’s, Ideomancer, Mythic Delirium, Not One Of Us, Star*Line, Strange Horizons, and Weird Tales. He and his wife Laurie live with countless rescued animals deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.
To learn more about Danny and his writing you can visit his website, here:
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