TREE OF JOY (photomorph) & A CHANGE OF HEART (non-dream science fiction haibun) by Roswila

A CHANGE OF HEART*

We are happily drinking the rising light when the foreign thing crashes through us, scattering poisonous shadows. Our ancestral stories speak of such things: solids, carrying even stranger solids – living things who breathe in either light or shadow:

filling in
the wound of passage:
light heals all

We are briefly shocked – a rare feeling indeed – when a small solid separates from the larger solid. Although this little solid does not allow light to travel through, its surface carries light as it hovers quietly, bobbing:

oh, this “I”
is so lonely!
darkness looms

We return to feeding on the joyous light, disturbed as the small solid’s feelings of separateness spread rapidly among us. They are so dense, these feelings. Will they block the light? Then it leaps:

the solid enters
our tumbling joy:
shadows burn away

The little solid spins madly, radiating fear. But what can it possibly be afraid of here? We are in joy, feeding together, singing to and through each other. This is the state we endlessly create, in spite of returning shadows, in spite of the dark’s cold fingers:

the solid’s fear
chills us:
joy is fleeting

We have no concept for this return of our songs from the outside of the solid in our midst, mixed with its fading fear. We have only “through” and “toward and “with” for singing. But trailing our songs returned by the solid comes a new conception:

we are atremble
with this discovery:
this cry, this “echo”

And, oh, the small solid’s song of fear vibrates on to a new level, thrilling through us with our mutual delight at new understandings:

the solid knows!
the giving
is the song

Our old heart bursts, the eons of memories it holds for us diffused easily into our nearest nascent heart. We trill our old heart’s death joy:

hearts change
the songs
go on forever


[*a science fiction haibun (prose paragraphs followed by haiku, in this case, scifaiku), that I wrote in 2001 from the imagined point of view of some other planet's life form. (BTW, the scifaiku form is a science fiction, fantasy, horror, or cosmologically themed offshoot of haiku.) "A Change of Heart" has been posted here a couple of times before, the most recently 4 years ago, so I figure another posting today might be OK. In any case, I really need to hear its "song" right now. Photomorph "Tree of Joy" (4-21-15 004v8) by Roswila]

PLEASE NOTE: in most browsers you can click on the above image for a larger version. Also, the photo accompanying a post is not necessarily meant to illustrate it, but to reflect some small, even slant aspect of the verse, similar to Japanese haiga (illustrated haiku).

There are many other sorts of posts on this blog. I indicate which are about or influenced by dreams. Some non dream focused posts are book reviews, "regular" poems (some by other writers, as the above is), scifaiku, writing exercises, Tarot haiku, photos, haiga, and so on. However, most of those are in much older posts. There's a listing by month going back to early 2006, at the end of the sidebar.

* * * *

until next time, keep dreaming,

[a/k/a Patricia Kelly]
**** If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”). Roswila's other blogs: ROSWILA'S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL; ROSWILA'S TAIGA TAROT; TRYING TO HOLD A BOX OF LIGHT; and THE MARKER TAROT.