A rosy infant once crawled upon a barren Earth,
tread a well-worn path of hackneyed poetry;
yet preserved in that nebulous memory
was a lone amber honeysuckle
by a motionless pond in a verdant carpet meadow
where the eternal thought of Spring
is timelessly encapsulated in stale air.
A silver toddler once traversed the gilded threads of this Earth,
balanced on a precarious tightrope
weaving fine gossamer webs
and slippery satin miracles
and a trail of ashen snowdrops bloomed in her wake;
A milky girl once walked this Earth
and sugared cherub hands close by plucked stars from the night:
twisted them into wistful notes
strung into a honeyed lamentation on the lyre
more intoxicating than love itself.
In memory of her
they brewed a pungent weedy tea;
In memory of her they grew a swollen peach;
In memory of her
they hung a twisting diamond shard,
suspended it beside the quarter moon
and called it their masterpiece–
and so it seized the light at a scintillating crescent angle
and yet it was
a little too sharp, a little too adamantine
whose reflection will never be quite right;
not for an effervescent being.
There once was an earthly girl glowed just a little too bright
so they burned her down, like a brilliant star,
with the tip of a searing flame
and ignited her soul,
and it caught aflame;
a white, warm light that was a sea of milk-threads–
woven into the frangible tapestry
of a tangible life.
There once was a phantom girl who was the dangling pear
on the branch of the dreamy willow
that exists in the poem only
a fragile image given too much power;
then one day she was stripped raw,
smoldered in molasses sunlight
submerged in incandescent dew: silent pleas that might have
fractured heretic hearts
if only their timbre wasn’t a silver-lined metaphor.
Time moved like a ghost
And in their remorse
they plucked a delicate plum for her
and it was wonderful in Spring–in the idyllic garden they made–
but when Summer came,
it was singed white cheeks
and charred pale lips, preserved forever in amber:
There once was a girl released into a cruel world by eager hands
when all she knew was love and caress–
so she never could have lived past Spring
not even in the poem: but instead
surrendered to the first stroke of Summer sun
in that transcendent way
of melting stars like butter
or withering skin like prunes
and lost youth like love
So when the tidal wave came just for her
(the rosy infant, the silver toddler, the milky girl)
she was not afraid,
felt nothing at all when she leapt off the crumbling surface of this barren Earth:
caught her soul of light in a guileless Mother Sea embrace
that swathed her in a starry quilt
and shuttled her home at last.
In the epilogue, we can only ever dwell on younger days
the flimsy, flinty promise of a brighter day
that lingers in still air like the perfumed sizzle of Spring:
exists in a memory, or was it the poem?
In the afterlife, it was an eternal dream from which she never could wake,
in which little honeysuckles grew, amber and lonely;
when the weathered Maker and the rosy-lipped Doll
and everyone who once
crawled tread walked this bitter barren Earth
could whisper pretty things and sing lush songs
about a girl who burned–forever.
Avery Lin is a 10th grade student and Balanchine ballet dancer. She lives in New York City with her mom and her younger brother. In her free time, she enjoys creative writing, watching the Noggin channel and staying up late reading all kinds of fantasy.
Art by Dawn Jooste
