Frankincense

Grandmother used to speak of people who once worshipped the skies It seeped blood into its own flesh and brought life throughout the lands She said that we were anchored to this world by the vast stones scattered amongst the trees She warned to not be complacent in our worship of such pillars 

I was 5 years old when I first learned what passing meant 

I asked why Death could live so long as to cull 

Grandmother would look to the sky and usher a prayer, tracing her lined fingers over swirled stone 

She said they held fragments of [His] soul 

That [He] hid in these anchors. 

In doing so, [He] severed ties to the confines of flesh and found a new duty to mortalize. Those who worshipped the sky believed that the Volki sent by the rain came to retrieve him. It’s best not to fight them. 

Since her death, the rain has grown more violent. 

Perhaps the soil has marinated too long, 

The trees only grow older 

The world is held up only by its spine and roots. 

Nothing really comes to an end. 

Just as the light doesnt care how shadows follow 

And the fog moves not by the trees that block its path 

Rocks don’t need to be wanted to be real.

Lada says that [He] sees no difference in flesh and fiber 

That every heart pumps to the beat of the same ocean waves. When [He] comes to greet us, we behold honor to be pillar-ized She has a tendency to go off on such tangents during worship. I worry for her mind. 

Clouds have begun to gather once more. 

And with them, the fleeting blue Volki that wisp between stones. On storms like these, Lada braids my hair to pass the time. 

Her home is warm even without her. 

Letters to [He] are strewn out over her bed 

{O Sacred Harbinger} 

Faint sonorous clinks came from her altar 

{Great Deity} 

The wind swept through the windows, sounding an ephemeral round of chimes {You have set the captives free} 

The candles go dim, leaving a trail of smoke coming from the altar {All creation worships—-} 

Lada’s rosary dangled once more on on her altar, lying above the portrait of [He] I had never seen her without it. 

I push against the advancing wall of rain 

Lada’s rosary tightly coiled around my palm. 

Through a volley of water, the faint blue glow of apparitions stalk Every turn of a stone, they disappear and return

Brisk walk evolves into run 

Each passed stone spirals a rich blue glow 

Sharp cascades of glowing fangs accompanied by faint snarls 

I tug forward, trailing behind growing numbers 

Apparitions upon apparitions 

Blue upon blue 

Racing through the water trodden forest 

I slow as they circled down into a clearing 

If not for the grass that grew increasingly more red despite the flurry of water around her, the girl in the clearing would have bore a resemblance to one who lies with content. And if not for her deep orange hair, I would not have known it was Lada. Delicate fingers held onto a strip of coiled, glistening flesh covered in bile and blood Spilling uncontrollably out of her thin frame. 

Air thick with metallic tang. 

Not even the wind could block the wet squelches that came as her flesh peeled from her bone Her faint voice barely heard through static rain 

“Isn’t this beautiful?” 

And the sky pounds harder, diluting the pool of blood she lay in. 

“Aren’t you glad you can see?” 

Her rosary chimed ever so slightly in my hands, filling the silence I was unable to. “{…..пусть петрикор заберет меня.}” 

Deluge thins out 

And it becomes quiet once more 

How quickly the sky pulls herself together. 

___________________