How?

How did we two – strangers to each other –

accomplish such a feat?

call this creature from penumbral obscurity

into being?

Full moon blooms beyond refracted panes,

rinses this place, this manor – labyrinthine –

in silvered light

Halls

chambers

corridors

crowd close from all sides, lean in

in long condensed & aged neglect, exhale

Rugs

furniture

gilt ornament

Beneath the pale moon’s benevolent eye,

as one, we two crouch, side-by-side,

astounded

breathless

exhilarant

peer beneath the glass table’s oblique lip

at this inarguable astonishment…

This blunt-tipped quadruped;

squat necked, squared head;

its torso thick, quadrangular;

of conclusive features, devoid…

Eyeless

Mouthless

Noseless

Boneless

And yet, curiously, fully animate

Of a tangerine shade so brilliant, bright,

& incandescent,

all darkness recedes as if repelled…

She – my unknown familiar friend –

extends her arm, her hand to trace…

The creature bucks, sprightly prances

to safety, out of reach, away…

“Hush & wait, do not frighten it…” I say,

“We first must win its confidence…”

Teasingly, it dances at the edge…

How?

How did we, two strangers-not –

despite darkness & abandonment,

from forgottenness nostalgic –

how did we call this creature forth

& into being?

We did.

— C.Birde, 10/21