Honey Mead and Golden Torch Light

In the mead hall, our faces contort, distort and hide; the dance of light and shadow plays with the features of the mask that we were given in the womb.  In moments, we seem like monsters, the crooked nose, the single eye.  And quickly, we evolve, shape-shifting under the flame's weightless persuasion into other entities, other beasts. 

In moments, we appear as angels, with bright eyes and the halo cradling the head.  We too were winged once.  And we contain the miracle of flight, the magic memory of some lost heaven; inside us, imagination taunts us with possibility and its backward mirror, regret. 

We drink deeply when we drink.  The honey wine is a poor excuse for gold, but it holds treasure.  In this laughter, among these drums, humming with the brutish chorus a familiar, nameless tune, we are a little drunk, a little more hopeful, a little less obsessed with all that we have lost. 

I say to you, "Look up."

At that moment, your eyes rise with the ribbons of black smoke from the creosote and you notice a bird weaving through the eaves.  Searching, as one will do, for a way out, he glides in tightening, confused circles.  He is looking for the small round portal through which he entered this echoing, stone chamber.  Restlessly, the swallow follows promises of cool night air.  On the walls and ceiling, his shadow chases him.  It enlarges and shrinks.  He is the projection is a magic lantern, half-real and half made of light. 

The mead coats your vision with a veil of laughing tears.  You are the bird imprisoned by the ceiling.  You are the angel late for the sky.  Wide circles now.  Giddy with your imprisonment, tired, you nevertheless will not light on anything.  You keep pumping your wings, your weary arms, your fat hands, arthritic fingers... 

Another cup and you are back in your body, heavy and drunk.  Your wings are folded, your fingers gathered in a kind of congregation, for prayer.  You are a fat man, an old man.  You are the weight that your wings cannot argue with.  You are the mead turned to amber.  You are a body, cold, stiff.  Your eyes are open, staring.  The torchlight examines you, finding every subtlety of your beauty, every exaggeration of your ugliness.  Your head is locked looking upward.   Your fingers will not be pried from the half-empty cup.

You are waiting for me somewhere, but I will have more wine.