Sand, his round and empty eyes are
staring through horizon’s line,
the waves erode his rocky toes
while diamonds in his innards brine.
They toss like dice as each heartbeat
sends sloughs of sluggish sediment,
through every throbbing artery
to harden all into cement.
Night has veiled all but the stars.
The statue stands and standing sleeps,
the tide rests on his shoulders broad,
embracing him within its deeps.
The moon goes round, the sun comes up,
the statue sparkles agitate,
the sea slides back within her banks,
and Loke comes to meet his fate.
For once sent Loke waves of fire
to lift a village up in smoke,
from family to ash and bones
in off’ring to the airy folk.
Flesh can vengeance ‘gainst Pure Fire
But by transforming flesh and bone,
Fossilizing fingertips,
Replacing cartilage with stone.
A wall of fire swarms down the dune,
and climbs above the statue’s head,
some fires run out across the waves,
and screaming, join the fretting dead.
He stands alone in towers of smoke,
glowing red from head to feet,
hands at his sides, blinking his eyes,
waiting a while for the flames to retreat.
And soon enough the army’s fled
into the sky, climbing the smoke,
and there he stands framed by the sky,
triumphant ‘gainst the Bright One’s stroke.
If he could see himself right now,
his gaze would through his body pass.
Cremating statues always fails,
but flames can transform sand to glass.
The blinding day has come, has come,
his legs are glass, he cannot run.
The blinding day, the blinding day,
he cannot ‘scape or run away.
Through the blur the blinding light
is flitting ’round in speedy flight.
There and dark, some pinpoints rise,
they hurtle towards his swift demise.
The pebbles bounce off from his chest,
There is a funnel in his heart –
and one succeeds before the rest –
It lodges there, the fatal shard.
And then the cracks are spreading fast,
he knows what terror means at last.
His torso topples from its base
around his neck the cracks do trace
a pattern wild, a pattern dire,
the pattern of a crackling fire.