Hands of Blue Peonies
By Jms Xuange
A being sleek and feral darts from rock
to tree across the grasslands of your mind
and you label the absence of footsteps beside you
as fear, stooping to grab at a stick for the
companionship its taps and vibrations bring you,
a conversation with the land that works its way up
and down the neurons of your arm until a torrent
of butterflies pours from your tongue and sweeps
to your hands awash in blue peonies.
A place you knew as woods dwindles to the north
of your becoming, its disappearance hastened
by something as inexplicable as snow –
or is it a flock of birds soft in downy greyness? –
a muffling of the past that sounds like prayers
to comfort those who mourn the dead
but falls before your feet with more impotence
than names forgotten, and kicking over this
unrecognizable thing you turn back to the bouquet
that guides you, its redolence the only certainty
in this birthplace without landmarks.
Author Bio: Jms Xuange writes from Asia. Their work explores transformation, embodiment, and quiet forms of violence. They focus on boundaryless identities and surreal emergence.