On The Write Path

Hot and Cold

Hot and Cold

1.

I'm a lava rock, searing through your nightmares. You send me to Hot Springs to let out stream, to let my worry flow to bigger waters where drops of anguish meld with joy and vanish on their way to oceans of tranquility.

Banished, I soak in pools with elk and deer. Pines enclose me here among hills that bison once called home, where they still roam imprisoned by wire and ignorance... ours. I slumber with grey wolves on smooth hot stones where sulphur cleanses as lavender wafts its fragrance, peaches bloom and melons ripen. I save a spot for you beside me.

As seasons pass and snowflakes land on my tongue and golden leaves drop one-by-one, I share them with you.

But once awake, this nearby place, these Hot Springs, like your heart, stays hidden from me.

2.

Your eyes glaze over ice you cannot skate. Cold breath hangs frozen by stiff winds. In dreams we journey south to where black penguins gather, where nothing grows, where humans huddle in low slung huts.

Where clothing, food and shelter obey one rule: what must come in must go out. I ask, where do they put their piss and shit? I wait for your answer ear to mouth. Your silence speaks.

At work your gut now grumbles. And I wonder if it's that bullshit they feed you every day. Where do you put it all? Can you let it out?

In your dream, while Antarctica sleeps, you keep your wisdom far far away, your warm flesh further.

Note: for Listowel wrokshop. Write about two places you have never been, one far, one close.

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