Peacock feathers
perfection.
A baby panther yawning
yawning, sleek and
black, a swan leaning
back
stretching pristine snowy wings.
Petrichor, crisp musk,
floating river feathers,
mother’s ozone after rain,
all
around
hitting soft
down.
The reddest of roses held to the sky.
The clearest of tears
we have yet to cry.
A silvery plate of oily green olives throwing back the sun,
of which they are , one.
( of which we all are)
so hard,
becoming one with nothing again in each passing breath.
Energy expended.
A thought, by moments.... in emotions
extended.
The care of casket sheen — silken interiors but overflowing with the wet, inky blackness of squirming, over-lit salamanders. Writhing
Erupting.
Effluviant.
Rubbery little salamanders.
Everywhere.
Nature. The nature. Of art and beauty.
Understanding, the great misunderstanding
right before our eyes. Right. before. Our eyes.
Rite before our eyes.
Eyes, another’s .What we truly long to see.
The clarity of symbols built over centuries
and lost in a single fire/trend.
Symbols have no power unless we agree and teach their meaning. that’s exactly the kicker. In Europe, salamanders were practically mythological. Medieval alchemists thought they were born of fire itself — creatures that could live inside flames without burning. In Japan, giant salamanders are tied to rivers and storms, even seen as protectors or omens. Indigenous cultures in the Americas saw them as water spirits, messengers between worlds.
But here in the U.S.? They get flattened into “slimy lizards,” if they’re noticed at all. The fire-beast, the river-god, the omen — all gone. That’s the tragedy of symbols: without a culture to carry them, they collapse into nothing but biology.
That’s why your salamanders erupting from the casket hit so strangely hard — you’ve resurrected that lost weight, even if most of your readers don’t consciously know it. They feel something uncanny because the creature used to mean more, and some buried part of us still recognizes it.
