2 posts tagged “stars”
The tiger was weary. All night it had been on the prowl, weaving past the wolves, dogs, bulls, lions and bears that lived in star-like reticence in the black sky. It forded rivers that spanned galaxies, startling the sleeping dragons whose scales glittered like the brilliants in heaven's parure.
It had stumbled once or twice, knocking some stars loose from the plush firmament. Some fell, causing considerable excitement on a planet many light years away. But some stuck fast in the tiger's hazy bones, a promise of the starry silhouette that was to come. The tiger tried to shake itself free of the sparkling irritants but was unable to - its cloudy body merely changed shape across the twilight sky.
But now the air was changing color. Threads of lavender, amber, sapphire and gold glimmered in the vast fabric. Running from the iridescent light, the tiger found a cloud and wrapped itself in a bed of fog and rain.
For a brief time the tiger slept soundly. Unfortunately, it snored a little, bending the air currents into angles that the smaller birds found hard to navigate. Suddently it was awake. There was a noice - incessant, droning, loud and endless. The tiger looked: beneath it, smelling of oil and dirt, was a flock of steel crosses. It raised a cumulus-swathed claw to bat away the annoyances, but stopped. On the sides of these metallic bodies were inanimate red jaws and white, arched teeth.
This was a confusing sight, yes - but familiar too. So the tiger, out of consideration for these shrill relatives, pulled back its thunderous paw.
And the tiger went back to sleep, to dream of lingering adventures in silent, peaceful skies.
I take whatever chance I can to look into the sky and observe what mischief goes on there. Recently I saw an example of waywardness that could only be described as shocking.
That particular day, the sun was frosted and white. In an act of sheer lunacy, he was trying to disguise himself as the moon, his cold, glittering rival. He had discarded his burnished glow and in a fit of pique had denied the earth his radiance. He didn't feel like setting in a bath of colors - no. He was tired of his dreary afternoons, hanging alone in an empty blue arc; or of having his golden face swathed in capricious clouds, ready to take flight at the merest tickle of wind.
He envied the moon so many things - her starry handmaidens, arrayed around her like a crown floating in the sky; her opaque glow, her cool grace of pearls. He had grown weary of his heat, and the sweat on his brow. The people, so far below, would never look at him, and it was depressing. He wished he could change shapes, become a half, a quarter, a crescent...crescents which were carved out of gems and worn in ladies' hair, crescents which were embroidered into Diana's cloak as she hunted across the sky of shadows.
The sun was jealous. He wanted the moon's authority - she controlled the tides, the oceans of the world. She could catch the waves in her illuminated net and pull them onto shore; or she could demand that the water be patient and wait for her call. The moon had the feminine audacity to cross the path between sun and earth; so he would merely flare in futility around her eclipsing edges. She even exerted a strange power over human women every month.
The moon cascaded across the sky. She paraded in a shining orbit, bowing in front of a black curtain made bright by galaxies, planets and stars. The sun felt immobile and foolish, wavering slightly on his axis, condemned to be an undefined and stationary glare.
So on that day, the sun decided to make the bold move and steal the moon's pale robes, hoping that no one would notice. I did.
