Remembrance of the dawn
before the dark...
A great breath was breathed, from beyond the beyond,
clouds parting, breaking and cracking, thunder clacking,
and the lurking baby broke free of the blastula,
spread his wings, still weak from the darkness of slumber,
still slick from sleep, and soared into the sky—
blown tossing and turning in the winding red wind—
this time of tornados—bone-faced and blackened
razor-beaked birds; he learned to wield the lashing tail, control
its arrowhead point,
his flight, inflict pain on the weak—the sub-species—
reigning over this new land of broken insect shells,
exoskeleton armies.
In the time of the sun—the ash cleared and the dome blazed
bright, a forever burning sheltering sky, convex panorama—
his fingers were solar flares, stuck into the gaping eye sockets
of bleached skulls, a king, the overlord of a ruinous mountain,
the tyrant of blazing white light, of skin-stripping
earth’s breath.
This is how it was—for so long, so many years.
And when the giant sleeping lizards rose up,
with earth’s crust in the folds of their big black eyes,
Lurk was there to feed, fingernails plunged into their scaly
hides, their plates of tough tissue, dagger-teeth bared,
jaws cracked open and forked tongues lashing, a howl
of unbelievable intensity, of canyon-carving ferocity,
the howl of the strong beast being bled from within, being eaten
from a parasite beyond its vision, beyond the reach of its
hooked claws.
It was the meal of unending magnitude—the
giant lizards kicked up
great clouds of dust in their struggle, in the savagery
that went on and on
and on, until Lurk’s body grew heavy, until his wings sagged,
and his feet
touched down upon the earth’s surface.
And then—as it was before—
the dust clouds thickened, tightened, blocking the
rays of the sun, and
the earth grew dark and crawling with shadow:
Lurk was fed.
But he was cold.
His stomach lined with zippered teeth, gnawing
the tough meat of the lizard skin, tearing apart the tufts of
armor plate—his digestion began.
And as he grew stronger, he learned to float,
heavy wings hanging
over his thorny head—still and silent—curled inward,
knees at his chest,
floating upward into the sky, until he revolved the round earth,
a gargoyle satellite, black angel—
saving his strength, preparing for the next opportunity to feed,
the next rising-up of sub-species, his next meal.