He meets his sorrowing mother

His feet were already swollen; he stumbled,
half fell, found himself at a place where
three roads met.
                  In silence.
           No breezes stirred the branches of
the circling oaks, no water sprang from in between
their roots; only - there was a fissure in the
rock, and the fire that flowed from deep 
beneath his feet flamed from this fissure,
searing the face and belly of a woman seated
at the meeting of the roads.
                              Roads are
borders; the feelings that converged across
his winter cracked another border deep within,
a line he'd drawn when women laughed at
his anxiety.
              The woman here was silent,
her agony interpreted by coilings of grey smoke,
slow but scoring deep into his throat and loins,
that strangled him, felling him (on all fours; he
drew himself erect, fell again,
supported on one hand, clutching at
his throat).
He looked up, finally - saw her
wreathed in smoke and flame, saw her
lifted by the neck by one bright thread
of fire, nooselike, flung down, silent still.

He feels a liquid trickle streak his face,
trace its course down through his beard.
He feels pain tear his eyes, his body shakes;
his loss becomes a fever deep behind his
features... and he can't know if
the huddled shape is gone or not,
he can't see past the first thick layer of smoke.

He can't distinguish trivia from a goatsong,
sinking, eroded by winter
and a long patience deep in the hollows of
his falling, deep in the part of him he'd
rather remain unaware of.  He fears silence,
but lies briefly in a cat's-cradle of
quiet weeping.

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