The exile is ancient, older than time.
The outland is endless, greater than space.
My heart is a cactus, a dry one,
rooted within the merciless cage.
Its anguish, sharpened thorns.
Its bitterness, fields of dry grass.
My heart is a cactus, a wet one,
hidden beneath the ruthless surface.
It is wetlands, feeding the swamps.
It is skylands, drifting above the badlands.
I walk toward the horizon,
my steps beyond measure.
I arrive at the final bastion,
my arrival cleaving through the world’s edge.
My hardness is raw, a permanent scar.
My softness is straw, a passing tear.
Yet my water is abstract, always intact.
I drink from the ocean within my shaft, forever abundant.
The sun erases my sweat.
The desert dries my flesh.
My skin does not burn.
My soul does not thirst.
My footprints are ponds,
pressed into the mud hollows.
My gaze is a sovereign gaze,
splitting apart hard stone.
This journey is eternal,
this struggle ethereal,
as shiny as the sun above me.
Ancient is this march,
timeless is this divine arch,
as deep as the sea within me.
― Atrona Grizel