Whispers from Elsewhere

In my mind I’m still
crouching among the tiger lilies,
peering through verdant blades
at the flower-studded landscape
beyond the borders of home—

I carry whispers from Elsewhere in 
the pockets of my lungs,
hear them when I exhale, when
in the quiet, Responsibility remembers
who I was before she met me
and releases the leash 
on my temples and tongue. 

Then my braid falls limp
along the bumps of my spine as
I shift weight to the balls of my feet
and press my fingers into the dirt,
curved back rising behind the lilies’ leaves
like the sun behind Elsewhere’s cliffs

and in a rush of wind and whispers
I emerge, a gazelle charging 
toward the horizon, the amber glow,
the next runestone, where riddles
open at the pace of my bare feet 
pounding against the earth’s soft skin.

In my mind I am there
and there is all there is.

When I blink, I’m dressed in marbled 
green, scratching letters of success 
across a clouded canvas, white dust
falling from my forefinger and thumb.
My pupils dim as they mimic
the marks on their own grey tablets

as I inhale Responsibility’s voice,
the deep blue mantra pushing through 
the void in our eyes—practicality,
convention. They nod,
dressed in the same marbled green.

But in the quiet when she forgets me,
the whispers again churn and stir and 
ride on the rims of my outward breath,
so that in my mind I’m still 
crouching among the tiger lilies

and beckoning the children to follow.