Today, Grace at dVerse asks us to “Meet the Bar” with regards to setting. So I began with that age old phrase, “once upon a time” and discovered that it seemed to be a setting unto itself, one that the speaker and the listener partake of evocatively, symbiotically. Or so I indulge myself in believing.
Photo by mirsad mujanovic from Pexels
Once, the old woman/man/animal/tree/rock began,
in the ages when spring set in for a millennium
water gushed from every nook and cranny
of underground wells and the vaulted heavens opened
she/he/it paused
there was an orchard where a blind child played
the rains dancing like fingertips, skimming her face
leaving braille-like tales of love and longing
the old woman/man/animal/tree/rock sighed,
upon the upturned eyes that could not see, the nose, the chin
the water savoring their quill-like strokes
the papyrus face now a harbinger of things to come
so that the blank eyes took on diamond sharpness –
here a tear fell, or was it a leaf, or a stir of dust –
her breath like the sifting wind among the chaff
her words a beat out of time so that the foolish laughed
but the earth claimed her as a shepherd’s star one still night
in the ages when spring set in for a time.
This Jolly Beggar 