This is another blog serial. Ope.
It would be work like neither of us had ever known for it wasn’t necessary. We had what we needed to exist, surely we should have been contented with that.
But we were the daughter of a mountain and the son of the moonlight, and we would not be so
easily pacified.
For many days I wandered the mountain. Crossed it here and there, scuffed my delicate hands against the toughness of it for hidden trails that would reveal themselves to only me, for I knew my father. He did not give us food when we cried that we had hunger, instead he would show us a bush laden with berries high on the cliffside. A bounty of krill just on the other side of a sandbar.
Finally on the fifth day I found the perfect spot: a small shelf that hung over a small lake, partially concealed from the sky.
I told my brother of what I had found and we began our work. He dug his heel into the sand and we both rejoiced as the water swirled around his feet and onto the new swell he had made.
As he climbed the mountain, I descended. I brought with me a tinkling waterfall from our father, and he the swirling mystery of the sea. We were glad, now, that our silver kin occupied our mother. That our father was mostly indifferent to our labors. That we were left in a kind of peace.
Our bodies ached but we could not feel it when finally we were to bring our water together, so that my brother might know our father. So that neither of us may be alone.
But I was struck then with incredible jealousy as I watched my brother, as sure as hewn rock and sleek as the shadowed depths, dig away the last of the barrier my father had put between them.
I would be outed twice, my silver fish to the waves and moonlight, my brackish one to the calm of a hidden pool. All I knew of my father would be known and then some. Things I could never see, could never feel, would be for them and them alone.
I hid my envy from my brother as he cried out in his happiness. How could I take that from him?
The waters mingled. He beckoned me to his side as he continued his ascent. How could I not oblige? He was my brother, the only being whom remained beside me when our parents both turned their backs.
Our father sucked the sea up into him and my brother with it. I feared for him as he slipped beneath the mounting waves, despite knowing he could survive it. The fear was for myself, for what I
was about to lose. For what he was to gain.
I ran to the edge of the pool, now flattened again but for the ripples of my brother who had plunged within it. Now out of the dark waters of creation he no longer blended in, obsidian on shadow. Here in the clear pool he shone like a star. What our mother did for our silvery brother, the sunlight did for him.
We spent lovely days, our father and us. I more kept off to the side, a finger or toe breaking the pool surface, while my brother rolled within the greatness of the mountain. My father revealed veins that
went deep within, and only occasionally would my brother offer his back for me to ride. Otherwise I watched as he disappeared to places I could not go, my joy for my brother an equal to my pain.
Our mother made sure we knew how she felt about it. She washed out our channel so that he may not return from the mountain, only to guide me in repairing it once her guilt became overfilled.
The lengths between each visit varied, dependent upon the geniality of the mountain, the comfort of their company with or without the other.
Eventually I found myself relegated to the shoreline again and nowhere else.
My brothers would simply bid me farewell, flit off into the unknown, to creatures unknown. Places unknown. The moonlight on the mountain refused me and so I remained trapped in the foam.
This story, which I am breaking into an online serial to release every-other Saturday, is the original incarnation of my recently published poetry books My Mother, the Moonbeam and My Father, the Mountain. Posts related to each of those books are also included in this blog, offering additional information and insight to the poems. You can find more information on books, events, and the blog at http://www.faunalewiswrites.com
Fauna Lewis Writes 