Just answered in my journal, but I shall answer here too.
~~~~ With the edge of a weapon not seen for three hundred years beyond the borders of Tibet, quarter a sky-blue rose tossed into the wind from the west. Place one severed petal on your tongue, speak the name of the lover who most disappointed you and spit. Replace the taste with curry and coffee brewed in the fire season of monsoon country. Travel three days by air, three by sea, three on foot. Learn the words for joy and war in the language of the country in which you find yourself at sunset. If it is your own, go up into the mountains and whisper the first dream you remember to the foxfire in the stump of a lightning-blasted tree. If it is not, seek a shrine where someone has left one shoe and a leather-bound book of rare poetry inscribed with the name of a sibling long dead. If it matches yours, wait. If it does not, seek the name of the youngest soldier to die on the nearest battlefield. Look for the house of his closest living relative leave the book on the doorstep, return home. Prepare a meal given to ghosts. Open the door to whatever comes when she knocks.
~~~~
With the edge of a weapon not seen
for three hundred years beyond the borders of Tibet,
quarter a sky-blue rose tossed
into the wind from the west.
Place one severed petal on your tongue,
speak the name of the lover
who most disappointed you
and spit.
Replace the taste with curry and coffee
brewed in the fire season of monsoon country.
Travel three days by air,
three by sea,
three on foot.
Learn the words for joy and war
in the language of the country
in which you find yourself at sunset.
If it is your own, go up into the mountains
and whisper the first dream you remember
to the foxfire in the stump of a lightning-blasted tree.
If it is not, seek a shrine
where someone has left one shoe
and a leather-bound book of rare poetry
inscribed with the name of a sibling long dead.
If it matches yours, wait.
If it does not, seek the name of the youngest soldier
to die on the nearest battlefield.
Look for the house of his closest living relative
leave the book on the doorstep,
return home.
Prepare a meal given to ghosts.
Open the door to whatever comes
when she knocks.
Reply
speak the name of the lover
who most disappointed you
and spit.
HEE!
Wow, ask and you shall receive - and how! That is so beautiful and so me (and so you) - fire and fighting and food, wanderlust and the written word.
Thank you so much! I will treasure it.
Reply
If it is your own, go up into the mountains
and whisper the first dream you remember
to the foxfire in the stump of a lightning-blasted tree.
Loved that especially.
rachelmanija, that is quite a summons you've earned!
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