Thursday, July 23, 2009

Overlooking the Abyss

Not quite sure what this is, so we're going to go with prose poetry. I didn't realize it when I first had the idea, but this more or less describes my experience with writing. Just a little dribble from my mind, but it's far better than nothing, which is what said mind has been producing recently.

-------

Last night I dreamt before I slept that an ivory maiden led me through an ivory tower perched on the edge of a cliff. It was high, the tower, overlooking an abyss, and from it bridges sprouted, many of them. They arched across the wide gulf, a spiderweb of safe passage. I told the maiden I wanted to stand on the highest point of the highest bridge, to straddle the abyss and watch its two edges meet eternally at a point just short of infinity. She smiled the smile of a lady saint and led me up staircases and down hallways. I thought at first we were walking in circles but realized we were walking in spheres; the maiden assured me this was the right way. The light was the light of a grey early morning—itself indistinct, everything else painfully clear. Often our shadows ran too far ahead and had to wait for us to catch them. I could not decide if the tower was one room or thousands. And finally we emerged at the tip of a spire, at the point where the bridge must begin. But instead of a path, the abyss bloomed before me, fading into a depth farther than I could fall. No walkways spanned it, nothing tethered its edges, and there was no sign that anything had tried. And so I balanced between waking and sleeping, calling out to the maiden who was no longer there.

No comments:

Post a Comment