A cool breeze dusted the tree leaves.
A soft sky of pale blue
set white clouds in motion.
His hands stung from the hard clapping.
He squinted at the red sun
through the bottom
of the empty broken, brown beer bottle.
This must be the day. Waking Day.
The crow's feather was tied next
to the cardinal's, the bluejay's
and the short stubby sparrow's wing
on a wheel of coat hangar wire.
It lay propped in the wind at the top
of the old stone wall. Blowing down thistles.
It should catch his dreams, boil them down
to his honest-to-God one wish.
That was all, one wish.
Polished stones from the old creek bed
formed a five-sided star
on a plucked and barren patch of earth
inside a circle of chicken blood.
Pa wouldn't let him have fire,
so he stole the matches
from the shelf at Pearson's General Store
and left a nickel, too much to pay,
but a bargain to pay for the secret.
The powder was hardest to get.
Filched shotgun shells from Pa's
shotgun vest, cut open
to pour the grains on the blood boundary.
He squatted to wait for the moon.
Oh, what a whipping boy he would act
for coming home in the dark.
But as he could, he would believe,
there was to be no more pain at home.
He fingered the thin filet knife
filched at the fish mongers open market stall.
This was his wizard's poniard, handle cut
with runes of a dead age by a passing gypsy
of a carnival show. Lost symbols of a strong
and ancient time that protect the blade holder.
The blade would leave no mark in its passing
but a sure death would follow its course.
The death of what was now.
He knelt to turn the rotting pages of the old book.
It had come to him in the forest
in a hole he dug for worms to fish.
It seemed to glow with heat in his hands.
His name was on the first page in gold letters
that he could read. This was made special.
There must be a purpose, its pages called.
It must be a good book. It was a book of cures.
It called evil from its den to vanquish it. Good.
He read the words of coming back, the returning
as the pages crawled in his fingers,
as the sun rested low on the horizon. The wind
was silent as he lit the circle round the star in the dark.
The hoop of feathers rose from the wall
to hover over the pentagram and burst into flames.
He could hear, Oh God, he could hear the horrible
grunt of the misshapen, twisted figure in the circle.
It hissed with each groaning breath.
"Come to me boy," it beckoned with one long talon,
"And you shall hear a thousand songbirds greeting
the rising sun. The crickets shall play a cadence
to your walk though whispering grasses of the fields."
The figure gasped, "Come boy, and hear the call
of thy father, the words of thy teacher, the bell
of the church at day's end." The dark face
grinned jagged yellow teeth. "Thy problems
are now no more with this gift I give to you."
The boy pressed his ears to his head
and called to the dark one, "And what is the price
of my gift? What is it I must do to hear for
always?" "Just come to me boy, the gift
is yours already," said the dark humped figure,
"I must anoint your ears with my tears
and make permanent the sound."
"Yes and so then," said the boy, " I will
take your place in the circle, you will be free."
"Freedom is just a word boy," the dark one said.
"We are all tied by the obligations we make
from the fabric of life. No one is free.
The circle is a place of dreams, of what can be."
"I choose not to hear the screaming of the deer
as it lays with arrow through its heart,"
the boy said. "I do not want the crying of
the hungry children, or the groaning of the sick.
I will not hear my Pa's frustration, his lament.
There is beauty in the silence," whispered the boy.
"I need not my ears to see a child's smile,
to watch a mother's love. One need not hear
a kiss, a gentle caress of the head, a bird
in flight low over the meadow. I can smell
the apple blossoms, the fresh bread of the baker.
I can touch the soft down of the new chick.
I can taste the spring rain and the shoots
of new grass. I am whole.
The demon scuffed in fury inside the circle.
Horns grew from his head and jaws.
He roared his agitation to the dawning sky.
The boy held his ground, knife at ready.
But the sun was the sign of vanquish as
the demon puffed into a curl of smoke
and was gone. The boy scattered the stones
and threw the knife into the creek.
He could not hear the angel sigh.
� 2000 DPMcClellan
