Tuesday 20 September 2011

Rhythm and Blues

This old blue day in the grotto, I am beating out the rhythm of hope; when the rhythm skips a beat, my heart stutters also. On the cave floor, puddles are set in collars of silica. The sky flows into them in different moods of blue, as though all blue can be perfectly calibrated. There is a cold scent upon the air: something radiant, lethal, divine, as the day drops into evening calling for a tin-foil moon to shiver in the wind,  and cast ribbons of improbable light upon the surface of the sea. It is freedom of a sort, I suppose to sit here, beating out the rhythmic names of God into the echo of this blue cave.

At the edge of sight, a line of blue beetles crawls up the cave wall, tracing the mercurial hierpglyphics of desire or despair. Worship or terror. At this scale, who can tell the difference? They plot their inscrutable route. But I won't look up. I am too busy whipping up a draught of blue notes for the ethereal choir of midges. When the wind falls in stripes, it will be time.

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