(no subject)

(I think I finally came up with a poem to match what I wanted to do with this icon.)


Mesospace
Burn the land, boil the sea - you can't take the sky from me.


Leaping to escape velocity
the strong push of my feet against the grass
digs little toe-marks into the earth
the last mark I will leave
I am breaching the ionosphere now.

One last look at the trees
waving goodbye;
at the ocean remembering when it cradled me
when I was a small child
I am no child now.

I am spinning through vacuum;
Aldebaran straight ahead,
here I come
and with one finger stroking
the red grass-marks left on my soles.

Poetry circa 2001 (or possibly 2000)

I was either sixteen or seventeen when I wrote this on the two-minute walk home in January between a house where I'd been babysitting and my own house. I'd recently read a Spider Robinson story which introduced me to the concept of "ego-death".

Ego death

I love cold nights when I can see my breath,
away from city lights and cars,
when I gladly glory in ego-death
to walk under the stars.

I love the chill wind that robs me of breath
the friends who've healed my scars-
but I would gladly suffer ego-death
to walk among the stars


It is interesting to me to see this. I have edited it slightly today; taken away unnecessary capital letters and added a couple of commas mostly. However, if I were going to write it today, I would probably put the line-breaks in very different places. Though maybe not, as this way there is syllable-symmetry between the stanzas, and the rythm is readable. Hm.