Red Woman

Red Woman

By Stephanie Mesler

I see you, a dismal speck of grey, washed over with the red that is myself.  

You are withered and infinitesimally meaningless.  

You bring nothing to my world…

or your own.   

Without my blazing energy, you’d disappear altogether.  

You stand out, because you are framed by me, surrounded by me, lucky to be seen at all in a tiny bit of the glow from my spotlight.

I allow this because my flame cannot burn bright without twigs to keep it stoked,  

I smell smoke as it rises around me.  

The ground is scorched beneath my feet and the sky is murky.  

The bravest of firy men try to tame my power.  

I toy with them.  I let them think they might  shine brighter than I,

but, even the hottest of them, bore me after a short while.  

I brand their thighs, take in the smell of burning flesh, before sending them on their way.  

I pretend not to hear you cry at night,

when I let my fire turn to embers.  

You sob for lost warmth and the dullness of my glory, 

But I need rest and your sniveling, your needs, have come to mean less to me than when you were a living oak tree.  

Still, I listen and I remember a time when I wanted you to be whole and alive.  

I dream of singing with you - two full voices filling the sky with song.  

I taste your tears - or maybe those are my own.  

Either way, the saline makes me thirsty.  

That is when the rain comes.

It is dangerous for an inferno to drink freely of the falling rain, 

but that is what I do - I stand tall and I drink.  

The water is fresh and tastes of a time before I was made of flame.  

You are awake, too, and I see you stand, for the first time in,,,I don’t know how long.  

You stand beside me and together we drink deep drafts from a puddle that is forming around us.  

I feel water at my ankles, and then, my knees.  

It stretches out before us, as we stand in the deepening lake, now up to my waist.  

Where you were once bare and grey, dull within my burning, you are now coming green.  

Buds appear on your branches and I feel the first shoots of your rebirth when you put an arm around my waist and whisper, we’re back.  

Before long, we are floating in a great sea of blue, 

You are fully alive and I am no longer the color of fury.  

My red has faded to fuschia.  

We are specks in a wide, wet world.   

And we sing in harmony, of our new beginning, and of a future that lies somewhere beyond the horizon. 

Red Woman is © Stephanie Mesler 2024