Life Is a Journey

Not the pelting driving rain of flash floods… not so long past… rains that do as much damage as good… but the gentle caress of a warm fog… shutting out the outside world… wrapping all in its shroud of wet gray freedom…

You can hear them you know… rumbling as they dash about and play in the freedom of the gray… a rumbling roar that echoes through the hills… feel them as the ground vibrates from their antics… no fires today… only play…

There are stories of olde… of dragons at play… dancing and leaping into the sky… red… purple… and yellow of eye… colures shifting as they blink… blink away… into the nether regions of Ire…

Stories of their wing-spans filling the sky… great hordes of dragons in flight… moving the air below from their wings might…

There are fewer now… or so seem to be… never seen one in flight… I’ve heard tell in the minstrels’ delight… seen such woven in the Tapestry’s tale hung in the even glow light…

Now they come only in the fog… happy sounds in the warm summer morn… screeching in pain… in the cold fog of north winters morn…

Its summer now… so a warm fog blesses the hills with the dragons dance… I’m drawn to their sounds as a moth to the flame…

The elders huddle in fear as they hear their morning games… I wonder if their fear is to keep us contained… huddled in houses… free only in name…

I hear the dragons call… almost my name… just over the ridge… am I food … foe… or friend… soon to be seen…

I can see their eyes… they glow in the fog… the edge of a wing… in colures extreme… deep purple… shading to green… reds so brilliant they are hard to behold… golden gleaming… and silver so pure… blues so deep as to be dreaming…

There are others among them… others like me… with the dream to be free… like me but changed… their garb bright and gleaming… unlike the drab colors of the elder folk…

They’re mounting the dragons… as if to ride the skies… many are rider-less… stirring about… a bright golden beast… with eyes shimmering like diamonds in the sun... moving my way…

It seems I’ve been chosen… to ride or be dined upon… which would it be… face my fear …it’s clutching at my heart… the drive to be free overpowering it’s binding grasp… I step forward… towards my chosen fate…

The huge golden beast dips it’s head first to one side then the other… standing still now I am… watching in fascination its graceful approach… moves so lightly for a beast so large… golden scales like feathers ruffling with each move...

Frozen in place now I am… tis fear or fascination …which I am not sure… watching the golden dragon’s dance… her great neck swaying and dipping… bright eyes swirling with colours… wings close… then spread wide… low then raised high… how graceful the steps of this dance…

Am I food … foe… or friend… tis soon to be seen… I can feel her breath on my face… her great eyes so bright… the swirling colours slowing to a deep solid purple… focused on me… still … looking… seeming to judge… am I found to be lacking and as such … merely food… or worthy of life… and as such friend… welcome to fly upon this great beasts back… to blink to Ire and never look back…

Standing still am I…face to face … eye to eye… with this great beast so golden… time seems to stop… in a moment frozen…

A choice is made… a move so quickly as to appear invisible… I am lifted high… yet to know food or friend… but sure in my risk… freedom in the dragons’ dance is truly to be blessed… either way I’m free not bound by elders’ quest...

My seat it seems … tis at the base of this great beast’s neck… as she deposits me… hence the grasp of her razor edged jaws with nary scratch… seems I’m friend rather than food… bonded now with this golden beast…

The warm morning fog is lifting… Skyward we rise… as one in the air… wings rustling as music… so swift is our rise… blinked into Ire…

written by: Mary E. Robbins
July 5 2006