SPN Poem: Mnemosyne's Garden (gen)
Mnemosyne's Garden
By Port
Gen
Notes: (1) Thank you so much to carina84 and smilla02 for the betas and hand-holding. (2) Comments and crit are very welcome.
In Heaven, there is no sky.
Smoke can't rise, so
the train runs unnaturally clean.
A track would scar the land,
so there is no track, though they'll make good
time to the border in the distance.
A thousand dandelion seeds outside
spin by. They gust past the window, and he sighs.
Today he learned that buried
seeds come here; in Paradise,
they spark without catching. They wait
for Spring and dream of rising through
soil to grow fragrant and green.
They'll be reeds by the sea
and weeds on the roadside.
He is not a seed, nor a flower,
nor the price of gasoline,
but he used to be free, and that raised him high enough.
Private car, the devil'd said.
It rattles like a bag of teeth.
An iron rail would stop us dead, he's certain,
break us down amid the flowers and the bees.
He'd sit, then, and listen to their buzzing.
...Off the rails on a crazy train, he hums.
And the devil's train keeps going.
An iron rail, with silver nails, muses Dean.
Holy water in the boiler.
That'd stop us here for sure,
cut us off from our destination.
In a year, you see a lot of things...
black cars and radiant girls, a boy like a mirror;
your brother standing in the sun.
When the devil holds your lien,
you look at everything,
and everything is pure and green.
Heaven's like that, a hundred thousand percent,
the images of a year encompassed in each
undying petal, now a sea of blue.
"Hyancinths," he whispers,
and the devil looks up from a limp sprawl in the back of the car.
The devil smiles and looks out the window. "Almost home," he promises.
The hyacinths are sharp,
like memories and regrets, their indigo too keen.
He shades his eyes before they grow too wet.
It's too much, not enough-all out of reach.
When a flower dies, it comes back here,
and the land expands by the day...
every day a new field of flowers.
Yellow fields give way to red,
and if he could breathe,
oh, he'd breathe them deep.
Poppies will put you to sleep,
the movie said; he'd sit in their midst and breathe them deep.
The conductor's skeleton hand had helped him board the car.
He hadn't seemed so bad.
"Only in Eden do we run on steam," he'd warned.
"And coal alone won't fuel us to our final stop.
"One coin," he'd said, "and you won't burn. I'll trick the devil
"and let you off before your stop.
"Mnemosyne's garden will bring you peace.
"You'll forget it all... the war, your self. You'll forget all things."
"Tell me more," Dean had said, with the devil smirking at his back.
"One coin and you can rest," Charon said.
"His face, though. My brother's."
"Even that."
Another thousand dandelion seeds outside
spin by. They gust past the window, and again he sighs.
The weight on his tongue is heavy.
In a year you see a lot of things,
and when the last is your brother slipping
a dollar under your tongue,
you have to figure-
that's worth remembering.
By Port
Gen
Notes: (1) Thank you so much to carina84 and smilla02 for the betas and hand-holding. (2) Comments and crit are very welcome.
In Heaven, there is no sky.
Smoke can't rise, so
the train runs unnaturally clean.
A track would scar the land,
so there is no track, though they'll make good
time to the border in the distance.
A thousand dandelion seeds outside
spin by. They gust past the window, and he sighs.
Today he learned that buried
seeds come here; in Paradise,
they spark without catching. They wait
for Spring and dream of rising through
soil to grow fragrant and green.
They'll be reeds by the sea
and weeds on the roadside.
He is not a seed, nor a flower,
nor the price of gasoline,
but he used to be free, and that raised him high enough.
Private car, the devil'd said.
It rattles like a bag of teeth.
An iron rail would stop us dead, he's certain,
break us down amid the flowers and the bees.
He'd sit, then, and listen to their buzzing.
...Off the rails on a crazy train, he hums.
And the devil's train keeps going.
An iron rail, with silver nails, muses Dean.
Holy water in the boiler.
That'd stop us here for sure,
cut us off from our destination.
In a year, you see a lot of things...
black cars and radiant girls, a boy like a mirror;
your brother standing in the sun.
When the devil holds your lien,
you look at everything,
and everything is pure and green.
Heaven's like that, a hundred thousand percent,
the images of a year encompassed in each
undying petal, now a sea of blue.
"Hyancinths," he whispers,
and the devil looks up from a limp sprawl in the back of the car.
The devil smiles and looks out the window. "Almost home," he promises.
The hyacinths are sharp,
like memories and regrets, their indigo too keen.
He shades his eyes before they grow too wet.
It's too much, not enough-all out of reach.
When a flower dies, it comes back here,
and the land expands by the day...
every day a new field of flowers.
Yellow fields give way to red,
and if he could breathe,
oh, he'd breathe them deep.
Poppies will put you to sleep,
the movie said; he'd sit in their midst and breathe them deep.
The conductor's skeleton hand had helped him board the car.
He hadn't seemed so bad.
"Only in Eden do we run on steam," he'd warned.
"And coal alone won't fuel us to our final stop.
"One coin," he'd said, "and you won't burn. I'll trick the devil
"and let you off before your stop.
"Mnemosyne's garden will bring you peace.
"You'll forget it all... the war, your self. You'll forget all things."
"Tell me more," Dean had said, with the devil smirking at his back.
"One coin and you can rest," Charon said.
"His face, though. My brother's."
"Even that."
Another thousand dandelion seeds outside
spin by. They gust past the window, and again he sighs.
The weight on his tongue is heavy.
In a year you see a lot of things,
and when the last is your brother slipping
a dollar under your tongue,
you have to figure-
that's worth remembering.