NaPo 11: 8 April - Snowdrop 4.4: False Dawn

(A day late ... so sue me!)

Snowdrop 4.4: False Dawn

She runs like the dogs, digging her hands
deep within tussocks as she tugs herself forward.

"I am not mad, and this is not a dream.
The world's not right tonight, no doubt of that,
but I cannot - will not - accept the facts
my eyes report: lies! Lies and schemes
to make me think I've gone insane. Stop, words!"

She runs like the stag, each step a bound
surging her up to the summit line.

"I know these chalks and flints, my soils - they must
hug the Marshlands, my home is there ... so trust
what you know, not what you've seen, or felt, or heard."

She runs like a woman wounded, exhausted,
the limp of her limbs lurching her higher.

"I am not mad, and this is not a dream.
Look! Just a few more steps and then I'll hit
the top; I'll see the marsh, the sun half-sliced
by the sea and Dungeness and this will seem -"

She runs ... and then she runs no more.
A shaft of light shatters on her face

"- a nightmare terror, soon forgotten. Grit
your teeth and push, push, push for your life!"

the coronal hues of a christmas dawn
and she falls, fractures, fissions, dissolves

and sinks into the soil - a silhouette, a shadow,
a space, a moment, a memory ... gone.