Nil desperandum

I’m consistently inconsistent. Could I have my time again if I choose the wrong colour? Blue is not it. I tread through down days and greys beneath green flecks in my dad’s eyes.

Green lichen on an old tree branch. The sunset, orange over the mountains on the other side of the valley. A world of secrets hidden in the trees, pinnacles puncturing the mood like so many arrowheads. Flint finds in an archaeological dig.

Digging for a truth always just out of reach, slipping through my fingers. A snake, scale-smooth, paper-dry, strong as metal, wily, determined, distracting me from the words I need to set my mind free. Fallen leaves rustle as the reptile slithers, meandering muscles rippling as it circumnavigates the boulders of my feet. It comes to rest.

Rest doesn’t come easy. Tossing and turning my way through life, a tiny fishing boat in the Atlantic, facing down death in the form of twenty foot waves.

Nil desperandum, the Captain would say, his crew unsure whether he is soothing the little boat, whispering Latinate words to remind her of her name, or merely comforting himself. If a watery grave is to be theirs, then so be it. God will provide, so they believe.

Providing succour in a desert dry world salted with bitterness. Bitter is the fruit of words that fall from their lips, staining my world with fear and desperation.

Oh, but still I will rise.

I will rise, like Maya, my blooms will sweeten the air, distaining disdain, jettisoning it into the distance. I will flourish for myself and nobody else. I will remain here, resolute, when they’re long gone, puncturing the future with fresh green hope, like an arc of arrowheads slicing the sky into a million pieces.

Green for the flecks in my eyes, now. Flint sharp. Cutting through the waves, coming to rest on a sandy shore, flourishing like hemlock. Surviving. Thriving. The truth may never be told but I have what I need.

For now. For now.