rosemary / blackbird by Dorothee Lang

(1)
it's a strange world, she thinks, standing in front of the window, looking out into the eyes of the city, into a face lit by colour flashes, born from the houses of the street. the schemes she sees through trees, from a distance, from an angle, like modern ghosts they look, curling, reddening, blackening, whitening the night endlessly, without beginning, without end

hours later she is still waiting, for the morning, for the hours to bring the shadows back to the world, only to get absorbed again later, on the other side of the day, at the other side of the horizon

if i was a colour, i would be yellow, she thinks. yellow like the thorn brush, yellow like his jealousy. yellow like the moon, painted as a child, huge and round in the right corner of the sky, surrounded by blackbirds

days later, when they search for her, he stands at the very place, in front of the window, looking out into the eyes that lead to the place beyond the city. maybe she is there now, rose, he thinks. maybe she found her way to the chapel in the forest in the night. the candles there black, the gate iron, yet the flowers in the vase underneath the firs, underneath the birches, they are rose, like rhododendron, like revelation, like rosemary

(2)
walking up the steps she thought of the girl at the beach, forming walls, carving doors, framing windows with shells, floating the rooms with words, they had been there already, almost audible, almost touchable, forming sentences in her mind, patterns of moments, mirrors of time

in her hands she still held tiny pieces of houses now empty, washed ashore, she put them on a shelf, three miniatures of life, created to last, left to last, until they will have been broken, grinded, grounded, turned to shore once more

the house on the beach, the ink on the desk, lasting only one day, lasting only for the moment a tide moved in, a flame rose, to fill them with life, circle their meaning, carry them away to the other side

on some days she was afraid that her words had sunken to the ground, were they would lay too heavy to be brought to the surface, would lose their colour when touched by the sun, by the paper, by the ink

then she thought of the girl, of the house, of the water, of the blackbirds, and lit a fire to white the paper, to brush the beach. waiting for the rising of the sea, she rinses the imprints left by the hours, by the pen, to clean the board of time, of thoughts, for the next day to come

About the author:
Dorothee Lang is a writer and net artist. She lives in an old house with highspeed connection in South Germany, where she edits the travel mag subside.zine and has web dreams on a weekly basis. Her work has recently appeared in Sunday Herald and Surface, Dublin Quarterly and Drunkenboat, Pedestal and pi, among others. To see some of her latest pieces, visit her virtual gallery at http://www.blueprint21.de.