The Goddess Consumed

The goddess moves slow
Her self to nourish
Slower than time’s increments can convey
From the grinding of leaves to dust and mud
To the glaciers’ courser carvings

The goddess moves so slow
Her potions to brew
That the leaves feel no sacrifice
When they find themselves no longer leaves
But dust in the layers of her skin

The goddess moves slow
Her composure to keep
Slower than the death of the sun
Bound by the shackles of gravitational forces
Beyond her control

The goddess moves too slow
For the insect that is eating her skin
For the damages done
Her choices are limited to reaction
This insect is terminal

The goddess moves not at all
The sun has gone out
The insect has reached the limits
Of the sustenance to be gained
from the corpse of its mother

November 2020

A Statue of Limitations

My outstretched hand
stone and ivy coiled
reaches out forever for your retreating form
obscured by the mist rain of magic and loss
But my face has turned
cracked the plaster crust of the past’s claim to sacrosanctity
my hand may long but my mind’s moved on
And under the skin I tap the vein that carries my spirit
in a rush of melancholy joy at my own ability to exist
independent and unreachable to the thoughts of others
This statue was sculpted by the hand of becoming
but it will not remain against the erosive force of being
It is not skin that defines memory
but blood and guts
heart and the blade of thought