When raiders scorch two villages whole, Avonmora knows she has to
call in the aid of the gods, lamenting the remnants of worm farms and the
graves of the baby marrows. The bees no longer inhabit the plains of the
altar stones, leaving a dead field darkening.
She packs for a voyage of unknown time, heading towards the isles of the
gods, her ship punching into the bright, smooth waves of the sea, sliding into
fading light and salt-ridden waters. Her flag standing proudly and sharp in the air.
Under the black night, a handful of stars shaking her in the cold air, she senses
possibility; boarding an island with a cloud of rising insects, the falling rain insisting
on another season. When the island starts talking, a roar of interrogation sprinkled
with sea salt, she quickly returns to her vessel, chased away by the sea-whale of old.
Glory reigns as she feels the air of the end of the world, the gods who long abandoned
her people at their final resting place; she enters the western isles and begs for mercy.
Shocked, appalled, a vanquished sight returning, they speak: we cannot listen to all
who seek our help. We cannot change what you cannot change yourself. Only you
can light the lamp in your heart that burns steadily through the long night.
Her vulcanized and screaming voice leads her people to unfamiliar ventures; she eases
them back from the brink, their slow incline reversing as they break open the earth;
they hear songs of the blue heron at night and trust its wisdom, the sliver of their
bashed and beaten soul finally healing as they find the worms and bees and marrows again,
incarnate, loved, trailing behind them, the afterbirth of a world marching on.
| Goran Lowie is an aro/ace high school teacher of humanism in rural Belgium. He writes poetry in his second language. |  |