Dirge by Naomi Falk
The relic in the middle of the field has an oceanic voice. Bronzed and ornamented, and I am riding toward it. I have not seen water in days. I have not seen lightning in thousands of years. Map in my pocket enchanted with nine spells from each corner of the known universe; I rescrawl its parameters as midnight’s sky caves toward me. Unconstruction inherent in the powers of man. Without language without the green of art. You can’t understand the glyphs I leave here. I’ll tell you again.
You are so sorry.
In my periphery the relic glows. Muscle becomes lake and bone boils to dust. Harvest me. A sorceress once wrote I do not want to create immortality. Must be a real end. I am tired of listening to lectures from the pulpit about rebirth, and hope. There is no tragedy in the passage of structures and the things they contain; the most devastating part of humanity is its undying will to lose no part of itself…Silky harp rippling together the shard of my carnelian heart. Wrapped in a brighter time. Besotted worship of the intangible riches of the body—labyrinthine lobes and the tip of a claw. I hold the relic in my hands, blow away the incinerated grass it sat upon. I lift it to my ear and its aquamarine dirge tells me it’s time for our surroundings to come home. The grass of the fields and the times spent alone, in misery, in tragedy. Cascades of lilies. Sea veins. Bowls of fire. Whisper unto myself the secrets of a life blanched. I ask if more is to come but receive no direct answer. Only a somber wail, the embers of a memory which show me stories I’ve heard time and time before.
(3/24/24)
Naomi Falk is a writer, editor, and book designer. Her work fixates on art, pain, and the ways in which we engage and disconnect our sensory perceptions. She is the production director of powerHouse Books, the co-founder of the print magazine NAUSIKÂE NYC, the senior editor of Archways Editions, and founder of Crop Circle Press.
She is working on several full-length projects and is represented by Mina Hamedi of Janklow & Nesbit Associates.