Twilight's Beacons

[redbird]

elisem asked people to post their contributions to her haiku/earring not-exactly-contest to her journal. I wound up with two sets of earrings. For the second set, Twilight's Beacons (each has one large hollow bone
bead, with star-shaped holes carved into it; two blue and one copper bead above, one blue below), I wasn't happy with my haiku. After thought and discussion, I wound up with this prose poem:

Twilight's Beacons

Emerging from the chaos and endless waiting of the terminal, we boarded a coach, over roads never seen before, but the birds are the same, the trees are the trees of home, and the sky on my planet is still blue, only a deep purple through the front window, above the same green world. Road names speak of other places--Harlem, Shattuck--as the twilight settles upon us.

Darkness ahead, of rain much beloved, but also feared. Lightning leaps for the clouds, leading us onward, and the sky on my world is a pale nameless not-quite-blue as the red setting sun shows me the place my people are calling home, for a little while.

Vicki Rosenzweig
Madison, 27 May 2001