Epilogue To My Most Recent Chapter by Jennifer

NIGHT.

The sky: wrought with stars,
easing the harsh void,
making hospitable this hostile environment.
and, in truth, they coexist;
without the darkness,
the stars find themselves rendered mute;
and without the gentle caress
of starlight studding the night sky,
the mortality suffocates all,
stifling, deadly, still.

The stars sing clear, true, and brave;
the night sees them differently
every time he opens his eyes,
but by them, he can realign himself,
continuing to move in a true direction,
if he so chooses.

Yes, the angels and the demon:
together they forge guidance
and wisdom, at their intersection.


***
DAY.

The shepherd, the Sun,
She rises to power,
relinquishing Her strength to reflect
only when Her children
have least need for Her nurture.

The Sun, She creates shapes and colors,
outlining all other beings,
so being the manner of their creation.
They exist only
under the supervision of Her insight.

Starlings and deer and
dogwood and tulips.
The Sun is their maker,
their Mother, their Mentor,
their Guardian.
They weep at Her fading gradient
as She sets;
they so honor Her passing
by following Her into oblivion,
returning only when
Her rays kiss their edges once more.

But the Sun is only one.
She moves across the sky,
searching only for time;
no landmarks;
no adjustment;
no evolution;
each of Her lives
following in sequence from Her last.

She is never reborn
carrying memories of
a previous existence;
forced always to relive
each same moment in
its respective arc
as it marks the journey
of time across the sky.

Her position will tell one well
all one needs to know
of what She has seen,
and what She has yet to see;
Her age,
and the lessons She has yet to learn.

Guidance, yes, She provides.
Safety, yes, She ensures.
But always the same promise
She fulfills;
no growth to garner
from settling into Her ken.

The day is warm,
Her presence always soft,
welcoming,
confident and content.
Indeed, the Sun,
She is a worthy shepherd
for Her complacent sheep.


***
DAWN.

Rebirth may be upon me,
I, the weary traveller,
have made peace
with the subtle balance of
truth and despair,
emanating from the night,
maintained only by
the constant struggle of the stars
and the black veil that is the void,
each keeping the other in check;
each compensating for the
faults of the other;
preventing one another from
falling from the sharply pointed precipice
of equilibrium.

But peace is not exclusive to exhaustion.
The path is worn and weeping behind me,
cowering under the remains of
my heavy footprints as I tread along it,
overhead.

I am on the horizon.
I see the path blazed by the
wakening dawn and the Sun,
the trail to tranquil complacency,
and rest from carrying
my own existence.

But the Sun is as the phoenix,
reborn from Her loss of knowledge;
ashes blown away
by Her very recreation.
She is an unwitting
assassin of the night,
and in turn its brilliant companions:
the stars.

To bear their carnage
is to rest in the thrall of lost souls,
so carried by Her Majesty;
lost, but ignorantly so.

I can hope from the Sun,
that She will guide me.
But it is a blind faith,
given to a Scout with no sight;
a Leader with no awareness.
But as a submissive follower,
I can fool myself
into mistaking motion for progress;
momentum for blazing new trails to success,
by its very nature.

Comfort appears to be
the enemy to growth;
but a simple fallacy
can easily fill the gap
between truth and acquiescence.

So though my mind cannot
stand for this deception;
this dawning of an age
of totalitarian deceit,
my body soon betrays me,
and I find myself welcoming Her birth,
welcoming You, the Sun.


***
ACCEPTANCE.

Night has left my limbs
frozen in neglect.
I am ready to feel Your
beams caress my skin.
I beg You to blind me with Your innocence.
Overwrite my will with consent.

One day You will expire,
and I will be left far from here,
having wandered blind along these lands,
with You as my guide as You
chase time across the sky.

I will age.
I will lose myself.
But I will be warm,
and I will rekindle faith in
the fish and the seas;
in the mountainside,
and perhaps in other travelers as well.

Blind me, dear Sun,
in Your form of "knowledge."
Wrap me in Your embrace.
One day I will locate my stars again,
and tread the heavy path once more;
the never-ending journey to find for myself
the birthplace of wisdom, of which
only the stars have been heard to whisper,
guiding travelers deep into its home.

But till then, dear Sun,
till that unfathomably far future date
to be discovered in another life,
I will be Yours;
Your loyal tracker as You
sail through the skies;
I, no longer the weary traveler.

Till then, My Sun,
silence my mind;
still my heart;
bind me in a never-changing cocoon.

Kiss me.
Hold me.
Take my life into Your hands.
And in return,
I leave for the fading night:
Myself.
My weary mind.