Andromeda

may 28, 2004

I was thinking about how our strides matched unconsciously.
I was thinking about how she said she sounded like her mother.

I was thinking about Andromeda 
on the rock, hoping,
but the dragon never comes.

How she tied herself there, we'll never know,
but they say she did.
Maybe she climbed up,
some summer day,
bare feet catching the crevices,
waves crashing beneath her,
sun dancing on the waves,
slowly burning her shoulders as she climbed.
It was farther than she'd ever climbed before,
and she didn't want to lose it,
didn't want to forget
all that she'd accomplished.

She bound herself,
wrists writhing to get the knots tight,
expectant,
waiting for death.

Maybe she climbed up, fearing nothing,
and then she looked down, and saw death lurking in the waves,
saw death sparkling in the air,
such a long way down,
so far to fall.
She didn't want to fall,
didn't want to be only a memory on the gray rocks,
didn't know how to get down,
so she stayed.
Time passed, and she told herself
she loved
the wild, cold wind blowing across the sea,
the hot, blind sun staring down at her,
birds flying overhead,
the motion all around her.
Motionless, she learned to meditate,
to forget the heights and the fear,
the slow whimpers from her stomach,
and the gray ache as her muscles stiffened, atrophied.
If they untied her, she would fall, limp, into the sea,
and sink to the bottom.

The sun burned, wind ate, and she lived,
tightened to a desiccated core,
a pair of eyes atop the cliff,
gazing down at the world, 
and watching.

She can't keep a secret, least of all her own.
This is because it is truth.
Truth leads to understanding.
Understanding is the freedom within walls,
the bird that flies inside its cage,
without seeing the bars.

Andromeda on the rock, hoping,
the cowering fear turned fiery,
refined from all her being.
She watches, alone.
She learns
to tell the time of day from the sun,
and to read the stars,
and sailors, lost,
use her glow to navigate by.
'Witchfire', they call it, and know
to steer away from the rocks when they see it,
turn south, towards the warmth, towards the world.

She looks down, and sees,
"But that isn't what I meant.  That isn't what I meant at all."
feels the rocks behind her back, rough stone against her arms, the cold wind,
"Why are you lying there shivering? There's a blanket right by your head."
which she said she was used to,
which she taught herself to love.

Tears, the last drops from dried eyes, vanish easily into the ocean.

Writing a poem with the falling water,
she forgets who it was she was writing to,
who it was she said she was in love with,
lets the words flow into places they never meant to be,
and then the next wind comes, and carries her off like dust.
She dances barefoot and pained on the seafoam,
in love with the world.