The Stargazer

Part 2: The Legend of the Cove

If I lay my body down in the sunny sand.
If my legs open wide.
Transposed,
I’ll think of all the poor souls
pulled in by the tide
into the channel
with their fragile boats fluttering on the sea like paper.

Some of these cowards approach in vain.
No bowing,
No blessing,
No reverence.
These fools will never know
bright golden treasures
just beyond the breakers.
For this prize was promised
without permission.
The channel will always close
over all their empty hearts
and drown them
and drag their broken bodies to the bottom of the sea
and they will be forgotten by the World.

But some men are brave knights
and solemn wizards
who wait with prayers
and magic of their own
and they bow deeply before the channel
shaking with fear.

He is the anadromous traveler
who goes forth into the dark unknown
the primordial muck calling him
to the other side of matter.
He takes to his knees
and knowingly sacrifices himself
casting fear aside
for he was made
for this.

All of the creatures of the night
bow in return as he passes,
Awestruck by his bravery
because they know the treachery
that awaits him:
An unrelenting current of
seaweed, jellyfish, eels, and sandy worms pushing past oysters and mussels
with shells like daggers
in the hard clay and sharp grass.

Stargazers lay hidden
in the belly of the bay,
teeth ready and eyes watching.
Warriors
Ancestors
Guardians.
The unborn.
The unmade.
The black hollowed out new moon.
The High Priestess
in a white-eyed trance
between the worlds.
The beating drumbeat pulse of blood.
Ghosts of all the witches slain.
Monsters! Lampreys!
Beasts with many heads and glowing eyes and barred teeth!
A siren spiral nebula calling men
and all their emanations to crash upon her shores!

And yet he remains steady and true,
this sacrifice noted by scribes
in the cosmic realms:
taken down in the great ledger
of human events.
The Empress receives the message
and awaits
like Mona Lisa’s smile.
The noble seeker becomes the treasure.
He is lost and found.
She has known him all along because
she is the one
who pushes him into the rushes
and she is the one
who embraces him in her loving arms
and she will call him again
at the end of his life.
A tide as old as time.

Beyond the mists and muck,
the great Mother Universe,
halo of sky and sea,
wreath of sun drenched driftwood.
Ospreys and eagles circle down
from starlit chambers of heaven
in every channel
in every cove
that ever was.
Amen.

I am using he and she pronouns here to distinguish archetypes and because I’m writing from my personal experience.
However I embrace all genders and aspects of duality and ways that humans can be together.

Poem and art by Merenda Cecelia