the quill and the cobalt blue ink of its rivers
like a giant tentacle of the sea
is nothing without the paper of this earth
for to soak it up
it stains the pallium at baptism
it stains the pallium at a funeral
once it were white
until the story of man bled it of all its sanctity
vivid red in every fretful colour of war
and bled it all its meaning as if a man grieves for the white light
of forgiveness to which he and he alone once where gifted
the promissory note of a man given to speculate a glad future
before he dies intestate in a scene of great intimacy
upon the lands of his birth
and the lands of her grief
Flynnpoetry 