The Gray Space

Natasha Wright

Blue sky swirled with light hangs low

over mountains cast red by the setting sun,

cradling a thicket of evergreens,

the line of their heads stretching out

like the bent back of a serpent.

Neither sky nor earth is submissive;

one dies not smother the other,

leaving it to fade into the background

of its last reverberation.

Where is the separation that I heard of

with knees bent and head raised?

The middle ground that’s left for us,

the gray space owned by God

and forbidden to the creatures of below.

All I see

are the heated peaks

reaching up like the flames of hell licking each other,

carrying whispers from the lips of Lucifer

to curious angels

who wandered too far from the stars,

scorching their feathered wings

and leaving them to fall into the fire like a backwards Icarus.