Rock Legged Heathen Poem by Ursula Livingston

Throughout the stormy embrace
Of kicked up rocks and dust
The pyre sings to lure its prey
Onto its burning tongue

With this broken laughter I have spoken
The trees echo in somber restlessness
As the rain whips their backs,
Their lashes screaming to the voiceless void of spacious sky, and daunting sea

Here, a speck plots itself on the map of life
Toddling towards its bitter destiny
The cloak drowned heathen clutching a wobbling light, a painted scowl on his stone ridge forehead, a gargoyle of royal robes
Now, his regal heritage, a sullied stain of carnage, pooling in his devastated kingdom's walls, a memory of greed, and madness

He clubs the phantoms of his adversarial family, as they peer through his mind
He grasps the pyre, the glowing embers of the torch chase the wind's sharp insults
As this heathen, a self proclaimed individualist, climbs the pyres formidable frame, he whispers a pleading prayer, and streams into a revelation

Lightning thrusts through the sky, in a purple stream
The heathen's mumbled confession to God, tumbles into a land of powerful requests, for purity of his wretched life
The heathen, now a prince of an eviscerated army, mounts the pyre, the man of a 1000 stone high kindling horse

And with a final Amen. he drops the bumbling fire onto himself, spilling flames to clothe his death of choice
In the early hours of the fading lightning, coupled with a man's thankful screams, as the pyre disintegrated, as it was meant to
Pastel flowers awoke from their melodic sleep, stretching their leaves to the welcoming arms of the Sun
The breath of the earthy petrichor scent encapsulated the scorched land, and life rose once more