Title: Here We Be
Fandom: Original
Challenge: Twinkle

Author's note: When I was in high school, my choir sang a piece called "Stars," by Lloyd Pfautsch. The lyrics come from Baruch 3:34: The stars shine in their watches and rejoice. When he calleth them, they say Here we be! Here we be! Here we be!. The phrasing bounces back and forth among the vocal sections like twinkling stars. (I managed to find a recording of a different choir doing this song; it starts about 3:35 here at Youtube.)


I have been travelling for two years now
a field strewn with rocks, unsteady
my ankle turns again, and I rest
studying your shadow behind me
like a scab I cannot leave alone

I have gotten no closer to the horizon these last two years
covering and recovering the same ground
the same questions
turning over stones, but nothing new emerges
just mud and muddiness and shit
I cannot strain this water clear

Maybe the confusion was the point, he said
and like a skeleton key, the lock turned

I see the pattern: thrown stones, sprained ankles
the endless chaotic gyre
bounded by the range of the slingshot in your hands
the clarity of deliberate dirt

Questions finally answered, I can turn my face away
On the horizon, the stars shine in their watches
and I long to join them

At the end of this road
is a place where I never think of you