The Veins of Stromgyre
Hey, what are you doing?
An artist’s rendering of Stromgyre the Whorled One.
A fragmentary transcription of the epic poem passed down through the generations
before Before in the great sea of stars was but one cosmic spore big, bright, and full of scars. In its gassy throes the sun exploded to glorious death planting infinite tomorrows with its last breath. From Nothing celestial storms watered this seed into Something where life could proceed. A sapling consciousness began to thrive a budding awareness hungry, thirsty, and Alive. A galaxy of roots grew the First Tree: Stromgyre the Great Yew came to Be. He spread within and without the forever blueprint upon which we stand began to branch out sisters and brothers sprouted from the land. Borne from cosmic wanderlust the roots sought connection built on a foundation of trust with love the only natural selection. Thus the forests evolved from bark to brush ways of being dissolved into primordial mush. Brush turned to scales then to fur and fur became skin Woman and Man sprung from a Fir Stromgyre’s grandchildren. Yea! humans were carved from wood but unlike their parents, they bled more than sap they felt misunderstood an evolutionary stopgap. Their lives mere instants a freckle on the worn face of Time a passing glance toward (…what, exactly?) existence an infected paradigm. Little more than a faint ring traced in the heartwood no songs to sing missing selfhood. Instead of love, their foundation was mortality angry, impatient, and lonely their lives a triviality a mistake — family in name only. They forgot stillness they forgot their roots obsessed with unfairness unsatisfied with life’s many fruits. They scoured the land for More and found forged in Frozen Flame an instrument of war bound by shame. Behold! Quatha’s poison axe a treacherous gift of parallax steel only human hands could lift. They turned this axe upon woodlands reduced their home to splinters revenge only expands kindling for a world doomed to many winters. They climbed every mountain they damned every river and drained every fountain imprisoned all nary a shiver. They built and built always growing and lusting and blood was spilt always untrusting. An ignored internal struggle made external eternal war impossible to juggle an infected spore. You know. You have lived it waiting for that deathblow ready to submit. But instead we can Remember that one life is enough listen to the whisper in our last ember shed our slough — and Return… Go back! We have much still to learn in our yolk sac where Stromgyre remains where Stromgyre waits to break our chains to change our fates. In the whorled center of this Earth in the tiny, boundless hollow in all of us there is rebirth our deliverance can only be thus. Face the last thunderclap — follow the track: In every palm lies a map to a forest without lack.
