I saw them coming from a long way off, but the
tall grass in the intervening space was almost
white and there were tiny purple bells here and
there that murmured in the wind.
Someone had once told me to be wary of ser-
pents, but his name had fallen from my pocket
and it didn’t seem like information worth carrying
anyways, given the circumstances..
The wind, when it approached me was neither
warm nor cold, yet it promised me with a wink
that it held both of these in its hands and I be-
lieved it to be trustworthy.
When the moon wolves came and the moon had
been devoured I realized that the rain might not
have a father and for a moment I felt alone.
It’s funny, but I think I am become like the ele-
phant who lost his captain, so once the caravans
had passed me by I kept going rather than wait
for a morning that never comes.
I came to a signpost that told me many things,
but its service was a mystery to it and this caused
it a great deal of distress.
I walked exactly four steps farther and came to
the one and only tree and this filled me with an
indescribable sense of joy; at this moment every-
thing was clear to me.
The bell-grass waved in a serpentine that set the
fowers chiming and nothing was silent after that
except the sky-fish slushing through the watchful
air.
I came upon a rock and this was important.
I whispered my questions to the butterflies and
the soft, cool dirt and found their thrumming to
be of great profoundness but nothing more.
A dying bird once gave to me his rainbow
feathers and I fastened them to the sleeves of
my robe and the braids of my hair; now I carry
color with me.
It was undoubtable that they were getting closer
but I made no adjustments to my mode of trans-
portation.
Several lions came close by my sides, but they
did not see me because their eyes were devoted
to the soil and they could not look away.
A merchant offered me seven silver apples, but I
did not take one because it would be forbidden
in the future.
The direction in which I was heading did not
change, even though it had wanted to do that at one time.
The sky was by this time composed of all six
darknesses and the fish moved with more or less
urgency than before.
The wind blew again and the bell-flowers mur-
mured and this was new to me.
I came alongside the edge of a land of moun-
tains and this was surprising because they had
not been invented yet.
A man embraced in wolfskins came dancing
down the boulders and tried to explain to me the
beautiful, I could tell from his appearance that
nobody could touch him.
He gave me a potato for a feather and it seemed
a suitable exchange, because we each are bound
by our finely-woven strings.
When I came to where my destination was, I
could not find it and I realized that I had be-
come lost; so I sat and waited to be found again.
One day the long, white grass will tower far
above me, but the chiming of a small purple
flower sings that I will not be forsaken; for this
reason alone I cannot worry.
It was there that they came upon me, one car-
rying the tongues of the liars in his bag and the
others with their fists clenched in gestures of
peace.
They demanded of me an answer and but what
could I say? I offered them my feathers——all in
vain.
I told them that violence could not happen with-
in the sight or smell of flowers, but they were
not interested in making conversation.
Ice and oblivion are sometimes thought to be
appropriate when the words become indistin-
guishable.
Somewhere the ghosts are singing choié choié ambri
la and children turn rings into rings.
Cam Jones ’20 is a senior studying Social Studies in Quincy House.