The Encounter

                                                                                        (a piece for spoken word, or whisper)

It is dark.
For it is always dark.

We are walking along on beds of leaves that crackle underfoot, betraying us  with dehydrated snickers.
On the spines of their brittle, little backs, they receive the feet that are dressed in boots - brown boots with white stitching.
A hundred we crush… in one movement, at least.
Were it not for the hour,
for the shreds of clouds warping the tungsten light,
while winds, high above and unfelt, hurry the sky along,
we would be relishing the complexity of that sound:
The sound of boots on dry vegetation.
Dogged, satisfying.
Every step a whetting and a relief.

So we walk. Are there two sets of boots, or one?
This is for you to know.
You the moon, you the trees, you the air that is still but with a soft shifting folded within it.
You, who are watching… You know how many there are.

There are smells at this hour, too. At this hour and in this place…
(We have not stated the place, but we know it already, all the elements have been, if somewhat scantily, provided).

The smells are of growth - growth or death. The death of green things, the death of things with deliberate and elegant circulation.

Unlike us - us here in this place at this hour - our circulation is anything but measured. It is the fastest moving entity in this place of hidden entities. And although it hides (a driving red rain at the sides of our head and in the cathedrals of our chest), it competes with the sounds here.
Sounds, smells and tastes.

We all know that taste: of blood
in the throat.
Blood, scraped and seeping from the membrane,
By the rasping of an anxious breath.

But we were speaking of smells… as much as there can be talk of speech in a place so explosively silent as this.

Smells, aaahhhh. Breathe in now.
But do it quietly. Don’t let the inhalation tug at the folds. The flesh folds, the voice folds, the quivering curtains deep down in the throat. Keep them relaxed (we must practice this) and let our lungs feed soundlessly, with no cause for alarm.

Good.
(Inhale)
Good.
We are doing well.
Well.

We continue walking.
As if nothing were amiss.
As if…
    follicles of hair we not arching to attention all along the length
    of our arms, and of our
…necks.
Nothing amiss. No. We are just sensing.
At the end of every strand is an eyeball. A nano-cam.
Audio-hirsute.
It is scanning everything we brush for data, and for heat.
But there is no heat in the leaves, and even the trees
Tonight
Are cold blooded.

The trees.
We move between them and beneath them.
We are their guests (of the most vulnerable kind), but they are
Steady. And so our faith in them is not
Entirely misguided.
No.
Neither their sour, toffee ears seem to resent our steps,
Nor their pores, our stench.
For we are spreading it around, leaving scent in our tracks.
Spores floating or falling from every surface.
Let us hope we are alone. Except for them.

And you, ambivalent friend.
Wherever you are…
Your eyes familiar as light,
And just as invisible – in this wadded, inky, barnacled night.

Did I mention we are carrying a bag?
My apologies for the omission – yes.
A bag. It is immaterial, however.
Made of cloth, and dirty at the edges, with something
    heavy, knocking against the ribs. We wear it slung.
It is not very interesting.
But it adds to what our arms and legs must do.
Where are you?

Were it not for the hour and the thunder of:
Pulse, weight, breath, gaze, heat – the scaly, arboreal monoliths
With their mauve-green blood, would chaperone and watch for us…
But as it is… we are impossible to cover for.
And so we just walk and abstain from thinking ahead.

(Inhale – loud)
Shhhh!
(Inhale – silent)
Keep walking.
There is no place for our ‘what ifs..’
We are not afraid, but rather… awake.

Another slick of cloud masks,
Then unmasks
The clinical light.
Every now and then it echoes through:
A call.

The air feels warm to us now, or is it the warmth of the vessels?
Minute torrentials, slightly constricted…
Continue silently, continue to monitor the breath.
Any complacency could be most unfortunate.
(If only the screams of the leaves – slain and complaining - were not so impassioned!)
Do you hear it?

Take it slowly, take it carefully, roll your soles like pastry to the ground.
And see – (listen) – better already. Let us make the last one hundred steps
In measured stealth.
Good (inhale).

The body is broken down to its barest necessities.
…..
Fourteen
Thirteen
Twelve
(Inhale)
Eleven
Ten
Nine
Eight

Red rain has became a slaughter, beating at our insides like
One hundred pikes, one hundred piercing cries of ‘almost’
And cells are pressed against their sheath to herald the….
Seven
Six
Five
Four

We can be sure of nothing.
(From where has this countdown sprung?)
But hope is a gracious insect, and it has been flying by our
Head all along.

Three, Two…

We slow the feet. We moor them in quiet alignment –
Obedient boats on a sea of
Martyred leaves.
(Already dead, though, these leaves, these gruff, percussive corpses)
Side by side. With the bag resting in the arm crook.
Single wide eye of the moon gone round… and
There it is.

You. You. You.

We turn a shining face up towards the brawny shoulder of a bark-skinned reptile.
But the scales seem all faded now, slunk back behind the radiance of
This.
Two eyes. You.
With down like ice, like sun.
And a soft breathing body with no thoughts of
- Out or in.

Masked owl.
You don’t fly or shift or consider reacting
In any way…
We below are just limbs hanging from a skeleton.
Our shoulders, though, imitate the quivering of feathers
And in the bone-light our face as white
As the rings around your eyes.

You are silver. You are a rearrangement of the moon.
You are the moon threaded with blood and grown feet.
Gripping the cold shoulder of your rippling perch.

We will continue walking now.
Going nowhere in particular.
And you will continue watching.
But not us.