Containment

Outside the garden, the trees grow taller.

Their majesty is breathtaking,

unfurling to conquer the void with never-ending boughs

stretching as far as the roads will go and farther.

I follow these roads, out to the shore.

Even above the seas!

And down into the depths….

And so I imagine myself an undead sailor cast overboard by some storm long ago, trudging along the ocean bottom where the rays of the sun become flickering azure sheets of twilight…  Echoing melodies of life spin, glide, and dance along my path, and sometimes I whistle to these passing phrases, forgetting my fate.  My own song calls out in response, bringing the melodies closer…

The echoes fade into silence, and I am greeted by the cold dark gaze of sea creatures large and small.  I wish instantly for their melodies to return and resound louder, now that they are here, next to me.  Peering longingly into their little orbs of darkness, I search only to find the reflection of my own eyes staring coldly back at them.  And I move on.

Now each step I take is separated by a heavy sea of silence, and my heart creaks in my chest like the sunken galleon of a once great fleet in search of new lands!  Those echoes of life seem only to emanate from distant places, like the light of the sun that reaches my eyes, but whose warmth I will never feel.  And so I move on.

A bough to climb…