Prometheus

This morning my mom left for her return to New York. She was sad to leave, and I was sad to see her go. We covered much ground up and down the coast; Santa Cruz to Monterey, then back to San Francisco via Highway 1, stopping at a few places in between. At a roadside farm we tasted the most succulent strawberries either of us ever had. Later we drove across Golden Gate to Sonoma, visiting wineries in the sun and dining with friends. A late night bonfire on Ocean Beach, punctuated with song, the rolling of the tide and the strumming of a ukelele.

Her stay coincided with the visit of some friends from out of town, on holiday after Burning Man. It was nourishing to be surrounded by so much love and togetherness. There is something bittersweet about visitors though; an imperfect happiness. Like wearing warm clothes fresh from the dryer. 

The ephemerality still painting poignant pictures on the cave-walls of my memory. 

We danced 

as flames usurping shadows, 

beneath the oneiric glow 

of streetlights - 

multiplied like moons in mirrors

All of us, 

pieces of wood 

burning brightly in the breeze. 

Our happiness resplendent

and sorrows 

flitting 

and flickering, 

licking and leaping from timber to timber, 

turning to soot 

and cinder 

and ash

while the waves 

crashed.

Lambent,

we robbed the dark from the nighttime.

The wind's serpents sent searching,

snaking across sands

seeking 

secrets 

Promethean.

----

It is a simulacrum of death, the departure. 

We did feign immortality though, if only for a short while.