Stained stars whirl and shudder

in a cyclical shredded space-time fabric of wonder

And although so silent its bold lips stretch in apprehension

Barbara knows of better times left

Her slender hull nudges celestial companions as if in joy

Sparks jitter from her nose plunging through gloom

and scrape her sides like aged fingers

through the hair of a naughty child sleeping

This open manger waits in silence; fair breasted its milk beckons

open for company and discourse still

Barbara seeks her mother ship.

But recollections gather on her fingertips

once painted brightly red in anguish

she dreams eternally and in repetition

her cold brain peculating

How strange some dreams when they parade so real

as lightening dancing on the shoulder of a sea-shot wave

tossed out and ignorant of our untimely gaze

their steam expulsions revealing temporary scars

Barbara's duty remains intransient but secure

her flowing tail is like golden hair

polishing stones on a meandering brook

where criminals once drank following a hapless murder.

Her cargo once splendid survived in life

as worms survive and thrive now in her expanded belly

racing forward, the past teethes her fleeting heals

ephemeral, beautiful, on nothing she feels.  

© Ian Scott 2009