Calamity

A long time ago, I was trapped
in the immensity of a lake,
floating on an island just big enough
for the expanse of my body
to lay across at night.

 

Suspended for hours that bled into days
that became a passage of time
I knew not how to count.

 

But loneliness escaped me.

 

Two volcanoes stood beyond the lake’s shore,
enchanting beings, they were,
as they sang to each other,
one calling, the other listening,
and again, every day and every night
in rhythm to a dance
they’d so gloriously crafted
over thousands of years.

 

Lifetimes longer than that
which I watched from.

 

I gazed upon them both every night
I lay awake, sleepless, intrigued.

 

The last night of my entrapment
the fog bore heavily down on us,
unlike ever before.

 

Masked among clouds,
sight lost of each other,
their singing ceased,
but I swear, I heard one cry out—brother!

 

Now I live years away,
far from the lake and the island
I once knew so well,
but I stare into the dark some nights,
and between the quiet tendrils of air,
I still hear that soft cry—brother!