twang of taught bike tires on hot tarmac.
bile rising in the heart.
all is bright and dim.
a voice commanding sure and low
a chopping voice
a hacking voice
a voice that has known killing and blood.
and i find it is me.
i scream into the sky blue in tongues long ago
under pyres, under cliffs, under siege.
and the voice is terrible.
even while the rise and fall flows and ferries me along my route
pedal dammit! don't forget to pedal!
i turn shyly from left to right; no one listening.
fresh from my pleas, my entreaties, my demands to my lover-god,
this voice takes form and a man rises out of the ground, blue ragged
mantle
dung-colored tunic
the voice is his.
cords of glass and steel and light and crashing flow out
his knarled fingers, bent, broken, puissant and masterful
a circle, two more, and runes flow out from him, out, up, to the front.
his speaking more clear than ever. i want to cover my ears but i must keep steering or die.
he speaks and two figures appear in a circle, cowering.
the teacher, for so he must be,
the teacher lecturing now, singsong, lilting, if old welsh with an old norse accent can lilt.
and then his piercing eyes, blue as sky, blue as bay water, greedy as a money-lender.
he looks to me and commands.
and i say in my own voice, my own tongue, sounding harsh and cracked as his own, what i command. and i do command, but put limits on the authority of these two, oh. just one to accomplish.
the other will stay hostage under the mission is complete.
and the master sings happily and gaily and he sings great tubes smaller atop the other, a round ziggurat rising to a pyramid. and the whole is complete and finished and gone.
and i am left, dazed, atop my bicycle. i am nearly home.
the master comes back, and he sings me a lullaby and tells me, i know, fear not!
it is now done.
i suppose it is truly who you know that matters.
