Towers

On a planet far away....

“Towers,” 12x9 inch oil pastel © Heather Dickinson

They drifted above her,

casting great, ink-dark shadows,
blotting out the stones.

Even the stones would cry out,
she could hear them,
as in the old stories,
the tremor
the sound
the fury rumbling–

Then: silence.

Even the birds dare not peep.

They drifted above,
Searching,
Searching,
lights blinking curious, almost,
sentient, almost,
And Seela held her breath.

The metallic pinging set hair on end,
Resolve strengthened,
Fingernails gripping in the dirt.
The dragging cable whinged and snapped bright
pulverized lavender crags;
Seela ran, lungs heaving,
Breathing, the only sound in the eerie,
with the sinuous
in her sights.

She leapt,
Wingless and yet flying.
Moment stretched thin,
wrapping and twisting below,
and she sank.
Defeat, defeat, defeat, heart crying,

But,

Then,

Fingers closed around smooth spun wire.
And triumphant Seela
climbed.

Hand over hand,
Fist over fist,
Pallid earth swooping
away,
Behemoths cutting sky
above.

They drifted now together,
casting great, ink-dark shadows
Blotting out below.

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Author’s Note 🌿

I’ll be candid: I really don’t know what’s going on with this poetry-as-story thing I’ve got right now, but I really am enjoying it. I can dip my toe in different worlds, scratch the geekier itch, play with fun words and language, and I’m not stretched thin by the demands of the form like I would be with a novel or longer work (I wrote several when I was fresh out of my undergrad studies, it’s a big big undertaking, much bigger than I have bandwidth for, currently).

Today it’s sci-fi, who knows where we’ll be next week?

❦ Heather

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Thank you for reading Pen-Scribbled Stories, a haphazard archive of experimental prose and story. Pen-Scribbled Stories is a subsidiary of the Heather in the Blue Mountains newsletter.

**If you enjoyed this creative ramble, please consider checking out some of my other work. 🌿