The Wonderment

The archimage- the great magician

The Wonderment

[at the edge of the world scanning up as far as one can see the shadow of a man swimming in the darkness a dank sea swirling about his feet inches away]

Fire/Red

put his feet on the very spot where the fire had been where the fire burned out the night before where the fire that rose from the earth to the heavens the stars that night were the souls of people that died without speaking again for the last time this spot that now contains the cellular memory of fire-fused sand particles and the error of just having been there.

Air/Yellow

that carried the sparks on the wings of angels tiny white birds the bits of fire that were the stars that night writing thin yellow letters in the black sky on the inside curve of his eyeball the smoke like heavy bands of flesh hung as ropes around his neck and dragging in the wet sand many things that he wished he had forgotten

Water/Green

the next night the stale smell of smoldering wood layered itself in gradually plummeting sheets talking and cajoling the underlayers of mist and seawater and the filmy residue of the curling skins of fishes creeping up and licking his feet in the darkness waiting to snare him unsuspectingly Hylas-like the foolishness in him taking a step closer to the edge of the sea unaware always unaware

Earth/Blue

the now lifeless embers the coalblack charcoal crumbling to black microscopic silt mixing with the fine glowing white sand mixing with the dust of crustaceans and fish bones and bird bones and mucilage and bits of drying seaweed and mixing with fine particles of crushed rocks then larger particles then miniature gravel then limestone then sandstone then finer pebbles then darker gravel then the smallest tiny stones then larger stones like peas then stones that appear to be rocks then boulders as large as a man’s head then rocks and caves that could be mountains that carry mountains within mountains magma and hot fuming swirling gases at the inside that resembles how he feels in his heart as he stand on the very spot that burned that night

archimage- the great magician

what changed pieces of wood and flashes of sulpher to a cloud of diaphanous miracles and sparks of stars in the midnight blue darkness of the sky that he stepped aside in as the vortex pulled the earth from his feet that became the empty sky that this is all he has left now from the hand of the archimage the simple coal dust mixing with the river of sand that is all the time he has left

[his hand reaches down picking up a chalky bit of glossy coal that once glowed blistering with fire he touches this once and is never the same again]