The Younger

Photography by Doug Carrick, and WildEarth


The Younger




The days and nights of innocence
are black rivers bending away,
moving like air
and the unnamed mystery.
We drop into the space
of there being no time.
Mother's head drops down,
thin shells close over
her eyes.

Alexandra, the older,
sings like a tea kettle,
begging bits of small torn fish
from Mother.

I, in the white ceiling'd place,
chip away with dagger,
a doorway through my
impossible sky.

Oh weary going, I faint from effort.
Sleep drags me away
into feathery seas.

I would leave my dreary work
yet my belly cries. I hear
a strange familiar song
and it leads me.

And in the still night
heavy on my circular shell
I hear puffs of mother's breathing
and clap of father's
landing.

I hear them call and sing
and it brings visions of
what flying will finally
feel like.

You don't know me yet.
I don't know myself.
I am still the riddle,
the small second,

the courageous,
the enigma.









for Egg #2
in the process




c2011 T.L.Stokes (all rights reserved)