Two Lone Wanderers
A poem by Kubi May
There were two lone wanderers who lived in the woods
where the bramble had grown thicker than it normally should.
They had slightly green skin and leaves stuck in their hair
but both had no idea that such a twin lived there.
‘Til one day they met on an untrodden path,
that had become illuminated by the death of a star.
He climbed up with the squirrels to sling shot her with nuts.
She painted on war marks and flung back clumps of mud.
For neither had seen such a creature before.
A mirror image of themselves, of that they were sure.
They peered curiously into one another's eyes
and began a chase beneath the starry winter skies.
They hunted each other to the edge of a lake
where in its waters swam an undiscovered snake.
They clung together, now nude and aware
that both had to cross the emerald waters there.
And crawling to peer into the waters reflection,
they recoiled at first at their new disposition;
as they saw themselves stare back for the very first time.
All their light and darkness and sweetness and grime.
She etched a large circle into his back.
He wove some fallen ivy into her plait.
They smeared clay on their bodies and began to play,
knee deep in mud until their socks wore right away.
She gathered the twine, he gathered the wood,
and they began to build as fast as they could,
‘til they had a houseboat to float along the stream.
At one with the waters, with their stories and dreams.
By dawn they sailed out the forest together,
across to a meadow ablaze with bright blue heather
where they drank the morning's dew and snacked on sunshine,
as it filtered down through the leafy woodland pines.
