Samhain 2013 - a reading (on YouTube)
Towering trees guard the ancient ruins where gods once wept. Only blind men dwell there now, unscathed by its leprous beauty. Wispy, white clouds fly like victory pennants on an azure field. Bushy tendrils of Spanish moss sway in the slightest breeze, swinging like the beards of old, gray men dancing in the trees. From his high presbyterian perch, an osprey dines in silence, dropping piscine morsels onto the congregational steps below.
Towering trees guard the ancient ruins where gods once wept. Only blind men dwell there now, unscathed by its leprous beauty. Wispy, white clouds fly like victory pennants on an azure field. Bushy tendrils of Spanish moss sway in the slightest breeze, swinging like the beards of old, gray men dancing in the trees. From his high presbyterian perch, an osprey dines in silence, dropping piscine morsels onto the congregational steps below.
Soft lavender twilight deepens to indigo as pinpoints of
light wink to life and a few become unstable, blazing fiery trails to earth.
The night flashes to life, briefly revealing a glimpse of the world beyond the
darkened window before settling back to a pale reflection of within. A
flickering flame describes an imperfect circle around which tongues of shadow
dance and press but dare not enter.
The moon plays hide and seek among the clouds, its light
occasionally spilling forth like cream overflowing a pewter pitcher, her light a
sparkling, sunlit memory adrift on an otherwise cloud-strewn and stormy sea. Still
and unmoving in the silence of the cauldron, water sleeps content in the beauty
of her reflection, capturing her in unnatural slumber.
© 2013 Edward P. Morgan III
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ReplyDeleteNotes and asides:
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We were driving home one day when I spotted an osprey sitting atop the steeple for a Presbyterian church eating dinner, dropping bits of fish onto the front steps. Something about the irony of that image stuck with me like an omen and forged itself into a line. That along with the first two lines of the first paragraph seemed to capture the tone of Samhain (an older version of Halloween, or All Hallows Eve aka the eve of All Saints Day). As I mentioned earlier in the year, this message was cobbled together from a cache of daily lines that had gone unused.
Picture Notes:
ReplyDeleteThe line that stuck me from this piece was the osprey on his presbyterian perch. We had been driving home from somewhere south, when we saw an osprey sitting on the church cross, enjoying dinner. I didn't have a camera, but a few pictures online gave me what I needed to create this picture. The osprey was perched on a branch, which became the cross. The cross was another image entirely. Once I had the proportions and the perspective right, I started filling in the details. First the bird and the cross were outlined, then I started adding color to the bird. Lastly, I filled in the cross. This, like all the others were done in many layers, so that I could build up color to the point where I like what I had, then move on to add more details.