Agape; or Snow Elephant 【 哆；还是雪白象】

he came from the woods

five hundred years, the body’s beard, a roaming cloud of the forest floor wandered

even to its branches

even in the lightest steps of a cloud dancer

he was the heavy snow that blanketed the harshest winters

bursting the sides of trees

until in warning the trees barked to their fellows of breaking ranks

ice weighing down their boughs

to bowing the knee before a new emperor

like to inconstant willows

who would pledge their fidelity to any man or season

Snow Elephant, they called him

the wandering beast had strayed from a shepherd long ago and grew large

until he was a peaceful nation’s king

his legs thicker than redwoods,

one sigh— the season of summer

and so called was he by she who slept in his soft down;

She, who was thrown to the beasts by a barbaric village for a witch

for the desalination of seawater

so that all may drink in drought

that they might drink

even in the greatest heights of angry Venus

where mountains’ hands reached out to the sun in the most wretched of desperations

a poor, abandoned Eden whose pleas for one plenary indulgence—

Just one drop of a sun-shower’s boiling rain

for even that once in ten thousand years’ drop to evaporate on their tongue

would give them hope across the whole, flame engulfed world that even one grain of sand was heard,

would make even those whom live in this valley of tears

thank the Lord that he still gives us those dewdrops,

and remember that if we do not change the way we treat the earth,

he could take it all away and abandon us to a h*ll just like that,

leave all pleas unheard,

and strike us to salt,

and sand, and dust, we would return

only on judgement day

when he breathed life into us

like the water bearer, she would have quenched the thirst

even to those thrust down into that deepest, most nefarious of capital, Venusberg,

the gilded mirage of paradise

a mask of Tartarus,

even amongst such scattered to the four winds of folk,

by that work, she would have served them sweet succor

but thrust out from the world of man,

into the wilds,

her sole comfort in all of life

the very solace and salve to her soul

the largesse of her love

became this one wooled beast of the wood

she came to him

like an ewe, her legs were a beaten,

half-dyed indigo from her thighs to the soles of her feet

her stomach naked, white, and bleeding,

frost bitten, wind blasted,

with the most piteous bleating,

crawling on elbow and knee

she shook like a lamb’s first step

and she became his child that day

his wool

as he walked came off as cotton in the cold and sat as icicles on the branches,

and in the spring it grew from the ground and clothed her,

her weaving outshined even the iridescence gossamers of Arachne’s sons

and even the sewing of the looming fate of shallots,

whom the Moirai deemed the season for reaping would be in that time of Arthur

at the flashing coup-de-foudre of passing Lancelot

thereafter,

in impatient anticipation,

afeared of that enemy, crouching white tiger of winter,

and in want of greater finery than all mortal kings of the earth,

she plucked a stray curl from his majesty

and with one slight breath, it blew out of her hand

like to Psyche’s light

fog sat for three days,

and afterward

this second spring brought forth the sprouts of wild dandelions,

a whole valley’s golden vault,

and in that year,

on their greens she feted herself,

of their wine, she drunk to his health,

and from their pappus,

she wove a fleece softer than that of the first year,

softer than a pupa’s silk cocoon,

softer than a butterfly prince’s clothes,

she spun this wool wind well,

into autumn’s looseleaf gold

to return the treasure she had stolen from him

she interwove into his coat, cloth of gold

he positively beamed,

his tresses: a bright, blonde corona

wherever they went, they walked together

He had led her back to life,

and she was his shepherd

amongst mermaids, she traded

but to old age, she faded

and one day passed in a sun-shower

of Snow Elephant’s tears.

He wandered and

wondered when again he would meet such a one as she

every time he looked to heaven and saw a passing golden goose,

every time he saw the gleaming beams of sunset’s rain

they misted and blinded his eyes in pitch darkness

and in that twilight teetering into sleep,

he hoped it would be soon,

but he hoped much more that he could see her again

He was awoken by trumpets heralding the days of Ino,

his fields of flowers, razed,

and on that beast of burden’s back,

Phryxus to king’s seat was raised.

his hide was torn in two,

sacrificed by Nephele to Zeus,

so that like to a beast,

he could slither a golden serpent through the window

of yet another beautiful girl

Snow Elephant became an angel

and flew to his friend beyond the clouds

than from hand to hand

and beak to beak,

his body taken to carrions’ nests,

and in Aeëtes’ garden was laid to rest

She had taken one lock while living,

and afterward, Jason took the rest

and from him to Euneus,

and from Euneus,

it was passed to a Greek for a Trojan slave,

and from him it was passed to another,

and exchanged so many hands like common coins,

like pearls before swine,

thrown into the cup of a singing street swain

who rolled like a sinner’s stone,

ambling up and down the road,

skipping out on bar tabs,

brawling with poor bastards whom he might have begot,

and to his legitimate children,

he left dirty, yellow kerchiefs,

crumpled and laying about the floor,

that he used when he had taken to cough,

his only remaining quality was that they felt like fine silk

and that all together,

they might make a fine, but mottled dress

As fate would have it,

for she is ironic as always

he was of heroic descendant,

they were heirs to the thrones of kingdoms long toppled by soldiers’ swords,

and the stories built upon those ruins that ancient king had walked,

now ran miles high,

skyscrapers, steel and concrete,

stolen right out from under the feet of the earth,

they took the bolts to pawn,

the owner—a parasite, their father’s false friend

took it from the sister’s gentle hands

and on them, he fixed a lustful leer,

determined to be in all ways a base and vice-filled villain,

he examined the rag and counted every thread,

and spying gold amongst the grim,

he let his eye linger on the luster of daydreams of wealth,

of gold in vaults, stacked higher and higher

he stared longer through his glass than he needed,

and spoke like one displeased,

but sympathetic to the children of a dead friend,

so he named a price,

they asked him to go a bit higher,

but he took the lower road still

it was all he could do

they were not worth much

he didn’t think anyone would want to buy ‘em

didn’t know if he could even make any money off ‘em

that price was all he could do

their father,

a gambler,

a womanizer,

a drunkard,

and a deadbeat

had left heirs to financial ruin

acquiesced

relinquished

their claims that it was must be worth any more than that

or at least any more to him because it was their father’s

and so their royal inheritance was stolen right from under their noses

downcast they their countenances,

they turned their eyes to the door,

and he laughed at their ignorance,

himself unknowing how great their making cost