In which a poet finds ways to dream skyward.
(Tales of the Mosaic – 345 words)
Tessera
Juni Writes A Poem
Juni wrote:
Leviathans rise on bluest moons
From reservoirs, runoffs and canals
Beneath this sunken city,
To reach the barren ether.
As water drops from up on high,
The magnates call it rain.
And as they sing their ancient songs,
The magnates call it wind.
The beginnings of a poem, maybe. If only he could find the words. The pen lay still, leaving a splotch of ink on the parchment next to abandoned couplets and half-written sonnets. The candles had long melted to puddles of wax.
He knew he ought to be doing more important things than writing about the whales. Tomorrow marked his first day laboring at the Fairchild steel mill; as his parents did now, and his grandparents did before. Soon, Juni would be a real boy, providing for this city so it may provide for him, giving his body the scars of toil for the privilege of living. He had known it his whole life, and yet, he shivered at the thought. It all felt so suffocatingly grand.
But yesterday, the whales had taken flight. He had followed the crowd as it emptied the inn, and skyward there had seen them, covered in the city's waste yet untethered to it. He watched them soar, he heard them sing, and for a moment, he forgot about it all.
And then they were gone, as quick as they came. The people scurried back inside, afraid the magnates would see their awe as slack. Juni walked home enraptured, head filled with whale song, murmuring verses under his breath, counting the days until they would return.
Now, his mother called from downstairs, telling him to get ready for bed. The poem was almost done; soon to join the steadily growing stack in his desk drawer, a thousand other little splendors. He'd bind them all into a book one day, he was sure of it.
Juni thought of the whales, shedding flotsam as they soared, and knew how he wanted it to end.
O’ whales that sing in the sky above,
Please teach this city to fly.