wildscape. literary journal

Syzygy
by Shelley K. Davenport

Amid these rocks, these round wooded hills, these outposts of the most ancient of mountains, approach the pillar. Hidden in the ten thousand inscribed, trace the one and only name. Lay flowers. Back away. The sky is adamant blue, enamel to tap fingernails against. Seven hawks, ambassadors of war, circle and cry as the three-day blood-struggle ebbs down the slopes. The ridge curves like the spine of a man reposed on his side. Crawl through the earth and bramble, find bits of tortured metal—bullets and buckles that bear witness like the oldest trees. Pause. The shadow approaches, and time laps back on itself. The hawks have gone and with them heat; the glare of the sun is quenched. A blink, a farewell twinkle, and noon-hard blue melts to twilight. Songbirds hush, allowing tree frogs and crickets to take up the strain. False sunsets flame sweetly on the horizons, while ten thousand unnamed stars hang in violet above. An iridescent circlet of silver rules the sky, a crown exchanged for all the weariness in the world. Kneeling by the tall stone, hear the long-desired sigh, feel the brush of cool knuckles. Reckon the loss. In a faraway home, a clock clicks the moments away. There, a tune is remembered. There, a name is written. Someone plucks strings beneath the light that never goes out.

about the author // Shelley K. Davenport