AesaLina's Final Posting

JEGER = description
My fingers wiggle against the back of my neck as I lay on Ground watching Sun streak across Sky. The southern breezes ruffle my hair; I shiver. When Sky blankets itself in a chasm of blackness, I climb to my feet. Grass beneath my toes bends under my weight; I listen as they snap toward Sky again when I pass onward. Their whispers sound different though I do not know how.
I wander the garden: Perhaps I will speak to him.
ADEGAN = dialogue
“Adam.”
He looks up from an armful of leaves gathered tenderly in his arms, “Eve.”
“Grass speaks differently to me. I do not understand.”
He tilts his head downward.
I cannot see his face in Moon's milky mist and Star's silhouettes as I whisper, “Trees are dropping their leaves.”
“Why would they give up their voices?” He asks.
I take some leaves from his arms then look around us. The forest behind our temple thickens with the eldest of Trees—many branches slice naked through Stars, leaves clutter Ground.
“I do not know,” is all I can say.
He carefully lays the leaves he cradles back on Ground, his hands hover above them for a moment. We wait to hear their words, but the leaves speak silence now. Adam walks away, deeper into the forest.
I press my own armful of leaves against my breasts, smelling for life, but all the smell I sense is rot. Suddenly, Air catches in my throat and I run toward our temple. Through the arches, down the hallways, until I reach the front courtyard where Soul grows. Was his voice lost? Were his words fallen?
Soul is a slender tree—white bark, silver leaves, golden fruit, tender voice. I enjoy listening to him the most of all Trees; he speaks of things I do not understand, but they feel calm and soft inside my mind, not harsh and dark like the way Grass speaks. I do not want Soul's voice to fade, for who will tell me stories? Certainly not Adam. He has no stories.
I fall against the trunk of Soul, hugging, allowing Soul to gather me inside his branches—his voice tickles against my skin. His leaves still flutter in the southern breezes.
“Soul, why does Grass speak differently? Why do Trees let their voices fall to Ground?”
Soul fades from white and silver to pink and purple as Sun flies up from behind Mountains. His fruit, though, still gold. I caress my cheek against one perfect golden sphere.
Keeper comes. Tell him your story.
Soul’s branches lift to embrace Sun and I slip away from his hold and hurry down the steps leading to the road in front of our temple. Keeper pulls a cart behind him as he approaches me. He looks different—his head closer to Sky, thin lines of shadow below his hands and next to his lips. I look for his smooth skin and find not what I seek.
“Keeper.”
“Eve.” He sets the cart down, presses his hands against his back and leans toward Sky.
“I have a story. Grass speaks different. I asked Adam why, he did not know. Trees are dropping their voices to Ground. Soul told me to tell you my story. I do not understand. It is thick and hard in my mind.”
Keeper’s head snaps toward me like Grass does after I move off them. His eyes round like Sun. “You spoke to Adam?”
“Yes.”
He turns from me and runs down the road. His cart sits quietly, just like the fallen leaves. I watch him until Dust stops dancing and sleeps again on Ground. I close my eyes, my head hurts with so much to not understand! I want to understand. I want to know!
Reaching for the cart I slide my hands into the treasures piled inside. I brush, press, and grab each item trying to guess what Keeper has brought without using my eyes. I feel beads along a thread. I hold soft strips of cloth. I tap the smooth glass of many, many bottles. I caress—
“Eve.”
My eyes open and I turn.
“Adam.”
“Where is Keeper?” He asks.
“He woke up Dust when he ran down the road.”
“Why did he run?”
“I told him about Grass and Trees.”
He stands next to me, his left hand picks up a bottle. “What is this?”
“A bottle, so Keeper says. My treasure.”
He looks at my face. He puts the bottle back into the cart and reaches to hold my hair instead. Sky darkens and I cannot see his face, but I feel his knuckles as they slide down my arm until his hand falls from my hair. Rocks gossip beneath his feet as he walks away. I shiver once, twice, and once more. I wrap strips of cloth and beads on a thread around my neck, waist, and arms until Sky pales enough for me to collect my bottles.
I carry my treasure into our temple.
PERANG = action (battle)
Keeper ran until his heart pounded against his ribs so hard he bruised, and still he ran until he reached the tiny village seven miles below the temple of Eve and Adam. Wild chickens gobbled out of his way as he reached the main road. The children playing in the street screamed with excitement at his reddened face and picked up pace alongside him, kicking rocks and throwing handfuls of mud to one another.
“Look at your red skin!” One squealed.
“Red like the backside of a pig!” Another shrieked.
They cackled with laughter and continued their sport of throwing various items.
Upon reaching the Chief’s door, the Keeper bent over his knees to lick breath back between his lips before pounding against the wooden door. The children jumping around him quieted down at such an improper gesture.
“What’s he doing?” One wondered.
“Trouble like the beginning of a storm!” Another whispered.
When the Chief flung the door opened with a snarl of disbelief the children dropped their mud mounds and slowly backed away before running to tell their mothers of Keeper’s unbelievable behavior.
Before the Chief could say anything Keeper broke all rules of propriety and clutched the Chief’s hands in his own as he whispered harshly, “Eve has spoken to Adam.”
The Chief’s grimace turned upward into surprise mingled with joy and anxiety, “Finally.”
As the Chief led the Keeper inside with a smile, the Keeper’s face hardened with duty.
He saw himself . . .
He holds his wife close against his neck. He pulls his daughter against his waist. No words can make room in the impregnated surrender. The inevitability of death slithers around their farewell; the hiss of responsibility scrapes at his ears. He lets his family go and with a hunch of the head he leaves his home and starts up the path to the temple.
The road forks and as he veers to the right he slips on some mud and lands hard, his hands sinking into the sticky liquid. Nothing moves; no sound. Just breath.
“I can’t accomplish such a task,” he sighs into the silence.
“Of course you can’t,” comes a voice, sneaking from the shadows of his soul. “Sacrificing oneself, and one as noble as yourself, why . . . what a waste, what a squander. And who even asked you anyway?”
“I volunteered,” Keeper answers the voice.
“Precisely,” the voice hisses, “You were wise in volunteering, for a volunteer is never fettered by a contract. And when you are not fettered you cannot be fritted away. So go back, back to your wife, your child. A man as talented as yourself does not need to be sacrificed for the forgotten dreams of some strange old man who claimed to be.”
“But I have a duty.”
“Your duty is to live.”
“And I have,” Keeper’s legs feel too weak to walk; he begins a crawl.
“Not if you keep heading toward that temple. Your life is over when you touch that fruit. You are dead—”
“A death providing the immortality for my culture,” Keeper feels strength returning to his muscles, “For my country, my kin. Immortality for thousands and thousands. I cannot turn away from this.” He presses onward.
“I see. I see how easy it was for you to turn away from your wife and child.”
Keeper pauses in agony, “Never easy.” He inhales, the choice to stay or leave riots within him.
“Go back to them. Go back,” the voice urges.
“Here am I. I am already here. I will go,” Keeper silences the snake within his heart.
“You are a failure if you leave them now!” The voice screams.
“I will see my wife and child again.”
The beauty of the past and the weight of the future met perpendicularly, cross his shoulders. And each pebble cuts into his palms, but onward, onward he crawls to the temple.


Sea of Galilee
Individual breezes glazed over the water,
Catching the tips of waves,
Thinning the molecules so
Sunlight bleached out blue.

My toes sank beneath the surface,
I studied the sand.
My pants rolled up mid-calf,
One hand held a white hat on my head
An unseen movement
Rippled across my light blue T-shirt
And short brown hair.

I raised my head
To the yellow blindness
Hazing from the heavens and
Thought of a Son even brighter
More glorious.

Once upon a time
A storm raged upon this very sea.
A boat tumbled
In these very waves.
Men tasted the very salt
I now licked from my lips.

Once upon a time
A man awoke.
A miracle wrought.
A step taken.
A test of faith.

My fingers slide the hat from my head.
The wind makes a halo of my hair,
Wings of my limp arms.
I lift a foot—
Droplets dripping down,
Back into the sea,
Making ripples of their own amidst
The mass of liquid movement.

Faith is a breath
Caught on your lips
Just before you take a step.
Will you sink?
Will you glaze across a glassy surface?
Faith is a step.
I lifted my foot.

I took a step.

Once upon a time
A man with weeping pores
Healed a bandaged world.
Once upon a time
A Son rose
To shed a little light on a field of shadow.
Once upon a time
A man took a step,
Walking across tendrils of sun-bleached waves
To lift me higher.

Lines of Fortune

eg welmi, linces apo bhers ghreibenti
I walk, lines of fortune clinging

me bhrater, eg spenmi
my brother, I ponder

kos bherom, skerom eueom
his fortune, circle voids

skerom me, me sweghs
circle me, my sorrow

eg ghreibmi
I cling

bhrater ne sagt me
brother not forsake me

eg ne sagm bhrater
I not forsake brother