“Reverence to Thine Spirits Within”
Within the obscurity of night’s embrace,
Shadows cast across the land tremble and dance
In the spotlight of the Moon’s aura,
With the alluring touch of the wind’s swift breeze
As it sweeps through the air, through the trees;
As it sweeps across my flesh—their fur, his feathers…our soul.
My eyes gaze upon the wonders of the night
As also do their eyes
Of radiant hues, depth, and perception,
Far beyond my body’s possession.
My breath expels a frosting mist
As I breathe with their powerful lungs,
And my heart beats with the blood of their strength;
The essence of my soul.
Trapped within these temple walls of flesh
They remain anxious with the fury of the wild.
Calling out for lives they cannot see nor feel,
But lives they know exist and are where their souls belong.
They have determination beyond comprehension
And will earn their freedom or self-destruct in trying.
But they know naught of this Try,
Only of Success;
For they know their path is right,
And they shall never stray away from it.
Within my chest I feel the immense power of Horse;
Its muscles are my muscles,
And I can feel each tense as it runs across invisible space,
And as it paws and kicks its great hooves through the air.
My ribcage shudders as it is pounded time after time
In a vicious cycle of repetitious fury.
The Horse violently slams its body
Into the steel cage of my bones;
Sending shockwaves through my spine and into my mind.
I watch in terror and helplessness
As Horse continues with the thrashing;
Slinging its powerful neck and head back
As its eyes roll back and up to reveal only white.
Lashed from the eyes and thrown through the air are glassine drops
That shatter upon impact of the frigid ground.
Its mouth swings open to reveal a gaping void
From which a deafening, shrill cry is expelled.
This terror does not end, though,
It only repeats day after day;
Shredding away its body’s remains
Until it is granted the freedom it yearns for;
The freedom it should naturally have.
My eyes stray to Wolf’s imprisonment
As he glares at not me,
But the massive Onlookers that surround my body.
He glares viciously through my eyes
To the immense numbers of bodies,
The bodies of his species’ torment.
He begins to raise and bristle the fur upon his back,
Then proceeds to turn back his tall pointed ears.
I feel as all his muscles begin to tense;
Pressing the paws firmly into the ground’s embrace.
Swiftly his lips roll back as the salient sharp fangs are bared.
Saliva slides down the ivory knives and drips upon the ground
As an ominous, deep growl slices through the teeth
Into the surrounding silence.
Then suddenly- a flash- his head slings through the air
As he lashes his jaws as they unfurl apart,
Then gnashes them together in a furious rage.
I feel Wolf’s cry to the wild-to his brethren-
Each day as he throws his body and paws his legs
Into the ground and his imprisonment within my eyes.
Beside me I find Crow with his silken onyx body.
He furiously flaps his tattered wings,
Slamming them repeatedly into the ground;
Stirring up dust as if it were smoke rising above a flame.
He beats his wings in the hopes and determination
To someday lift them above the earthen rock,
And allow the air and thermals to rest gently underneath them.
But chained to his bony, delicate legs
Are weights that the air cannot lift.
I wish to reach out and shatter his chains,
To lift him into my arms’ embrace
And in an instant, heal his shredded wings.
Then gently toss him toward the sky
And let him spread his wings in freedom
So that the sky may become his cradle, his life, and thus his paradise.
Lastly, I witness my sacred Cat,
Chained and caged in fury, despair, and misery.
She paces profusely back and forth
Within the suffocating, minute dimensions of her prison.
I feel as Cat’s anxiety continues to build
And with it, overwhelming rage.
We both begin to feel it consume our entirety
As her fur begins to slam against the metal bars,
Instead of lightly brushing against them;
Back-and-forth as she paces with increased speed.
Her ears and tail twitch angrily,
And deep, low growls protrude from her lungs and mouth.
I hear her hiss and snarl at the Onlookers
While she pulls and twists the burdensome chain
Tied solely around her gracious neck.
Her sleek, soft fur has become sullied with filth and blood,
And yet her instincts of cleanliness
Are of no matter to her here.
She pauses her pacing only long enough
To thrash her head to the Onlookers,
While viciously snarling and growling
And swiping her mutilated paws
In the hopes of striking a victim
With her ivory scythes of claws and teeth.
My eyes have never seen such power,
Such rage and determination,
In the eyes and soul of any being.
She is truly breathtaking in her desire and strength,
And with each breath I take
She also breathes the same air with me,
Thus overwhelming me with her being and soul
As I realize that her soul is also that of mine;
We are the same, and her entirety is mine.
Her will and yearning for freedom,
For the wild, for the hunt, for the satisfaction of her bloodlust,
For everything she desires,
I also, in return, desire.
These are the magnificent Spirits I hold within;
Deep within the very chasms of my soul.
They are me, I am them,
We are all one together,
And cannot, nor shall not ever be separated.
They remain locked away in horrid prisons inside me,
But that will all end soon.
Their suffering will cease because I will answer their screaming calls;
I will free them from their cages and chains
So that they may be free and wild
To do as they were created by Nature to do.
If I do not free them
It will be my own demise and self-destruction,
As well as theirs,
And I refuse with every ounce of my soul
To allow that to be.
My gracious, sacred Spirits,
I WILL save you and grant you your peace, freedom, and serenity,
And rid myself of this Catatonic Soul,
For it will become vivacious and truly beautiful
Once more.
You are the most precious treasures of my soul
And I will treat you with the love, honor, and respect
That you shall always deserve.
You, Horse, will be able to run swiftly and free,
To graze upon luscious plains and fields.
Crow, you will fly high and cover vast reaches of the sky
As you will return to your humorous, trickster nature.
Glorious Wolf, you will walk great distances of your territory,
And be free to howl, hunt, and run as you please.
Cat, my magnificent, most sacred Cat,
You will live a beautiful, independent life;
Satisfying your instincts for the hunt, bloodlust, climbing, and even playing,
All as you wish and see fit.
You will all be free to be yourselves and be wild-
-This is what I promise you;
This is what I promise myself.
Thank you, my wondrous Spirits, for being a part of me,
For I would have been lost without you,
But now I am whole…now I am my true self.
~ Sonne 1/31/05