Passing By
Driving home one evening I came upon familiar streets
Half-hidden like secrets by the watch of sentry weeds;
I was led in by the winding of the roads,
Labyrinthine beneath a canopy of jungle trees.
In the heart of the maze I found without eyes
His house, undaunted by the weight of all the years.
His car stood in the driveway, broken and exposed,
And red as blood beyond the reaches of the rust.
The walls of the house
Were close enough to touch,
The walls of memory
Thin enough to step through.
Darkened windows gaped all around
At the waking of the slumbering monster,
History.
It was his voice that wrapped itself around my mind,
His words that spread like fever through my veins,
Igniting the walls of centuries like facades
To raise up the promise of the garden reborn.
We burned fires in the rain,
We burned our selves in the rain,
We danced to the pulse of the night,
We sang with ancient voices
At the altar of flesh and stone.
We raised up our hands in sacrifice;
The smoke bore up our sacrifice
To the burning gods,
The dark gods,
In retroactive prophecy.
Thistles tore at our skin,
Reaching out to kindred savage blood
As we traced the footprints of ancient beasts
On ground that the sun never saw.
I thought I could see my face in the darkness
With the grasses straining to hear a whimpered voice again.
I fled home past the lines of lights and noise,
Slammed the door, jarred by the echo of its hollow ring.
Inside my house, ordered in its row of houses,
Inside the walls that closed around me like a clock's hands,
I chain-smoked through the night of first ages
Knowing the tobacco trance
Could never take the place of the chemistry he catalyzed.
I listened to the call of the night outside my window,
Breathed the intoxicating breath of the night against my window;
And the nameless dread that hides its face among the brush
Stalked my rest
Till an uneasy sunrise broke.
I shall not tell you more.
©1999 Elizabeth Hebert
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