FRISSON

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Submitted Date 12/06/2022
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As the grey, cold air makes its way into the environs of the snake
I turn my face to the vanguard of the morning as it crests the hill of today like knights ablaze with glory.
Eager to banish the mercenary shadows of the night, to purge our quiet corners of cognition of heretic, doubting shadows, their coming makes a million mundane resurrections. Only the darkling footprints remain as the inkstain anchors of tonight's wakefulness.

The northerly visitor rushes over Evangeline's land like the children after the last school bell, annually appalled by the criminal blooming of Louisiana October. Rushing hither, rushing yon they sentence every flower to a comfortable death by the feathersoft embrace of the rambling hush. We'll see you next year, they whisper. We will. I never knew honeysuckle died with a smile.

My eyes are wet, and sure, I'll blame that late winter war band for the telltale streams. Off in the unseen anywhere, the kingbird says, "Wheatwheat-Wheatwheat". I wish it was a call of confidence, like the mockingbird. His call is an apology for today, immediately silenced by the morning words of any other featherbearer. I wonder if he feels as tremulous as he sounds, and resolve to ask him after I've had my coffee.

From far away and faintly sound the trumpets of our comfortable Canadian invasion, and far above me, the black-masked royal progress continues south, my notice unnoticed as the courtiers compare notes in chevron formation. I imagine a wise old goosefather saying, "Look, kids, it's Nouvelle Acadie!", and smile at the long line this drops as it connects two refuges like a tin-can telephone into time's river as it rushes past.

A door slams down the street and the morning magic is scattered, borne west to the Mermentau for the enjoyment of a hundred fisherfolk. I make final eye contact with the dawn and she rolls her eyes heavenward, the last bracing sigh of her resignation bidding me, "Good day, Sir."
Heavenward, indeed.1

Brady S BowenI like pretty words.

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