Metanoia

For I am a stranger

For it, for her... I cry out.

And from my cry,

A visceral echo bursts forth.

I feel I have crossed the expanse

To a world of decay that responds not

To my cry.

If I shake the umber branches

Only decay will drop from them.

Stones,

Stones-no fruit.

Remnants of what I once was

Even the cerulean springs

Are stones, even the limpid breeze

Stones - moistened with crimson

My wail, a siren, my mouth, a rock.

My porcelain legs, a wind straying in the wastes.

My softened voice, a faint echo lodged in the depths of memories.

II.

Flaxen rivers

Ripple upon liquified redwoods.

Rich chestnut meltingly harmonizes

Within the depths of my iris.

Blushing petals burgeoning from my core.

Verdurous vines meshing,

Boundlessly sweeping across my bones.

For I am the fruit the branches bare.

I will not be shackled and bound

By the ropes of humankind.

For I am the cupreous solar flares that lie,

Beneath the hubristic phoenix

That rises from the ashes of the decay.