Days of brass and sunlight, and the chrysanthemum face 
                with eyes of gold.

He would sit there in the light, 
without  moving,  sometimes  for
years... Then, when he spoke, it
was  of  small  details,  trivial  visions.
One could often think on one such chord  for an age,
        live an ordinary life of  bees and stairs and
        children, and realize one pale autumn morning
                what meaning was hidden in that 
                handful of words...

                        We  would talk there,  in the sunlight,
                        of small things, every phrase he spoke
                        being  a little truth.
                If you took each of these, and fit
                them  together,  and  angled  them
                to the light, so,  they would form 
                a large truth...
                                or merely a collection of small ones.

He lived in Peru, long  ago.
Many of them did    --    the old ones settled to rest.
They liked the foothills of
the  mountains,  where  the
air was mellowed, and the  feet of the giants
were full of caves  which held the  collected
sunlight of centuries,  released  in the warm,
dust-filled summer nights.  His scales caught
        and reflected the golden light, turning black metal
        to brass, and brass to gold...

                        Days of warmth and stillness, and the
                        rumble  which  filled the corners and 
                        teased  into every crack which is the
                        laughter of a dragon...  I remember.

        Dust  and truth,  with the motes which hung in the sunlight
        like gold floating in oil, amber flecks in the deeper brown
        and black,  the  click  of claws on stone.   Twin pools  of
                molten  brass,  unblinking,  holding  wisdom
                behind  polished rims.   Holding souls,  and
                the depth of time, and the dust and sunlight
                of an age long forgotten.

Dragons are rare these days,
with their slow habits  and 
quick thoughts, their eyes full of fire and time.
        Still a few  drowse in Peru,  in  mountain
        caves full of sunlight.  Still a few  send
        laughter wandering  the cracks and corners
        of  the  stones,   making   the  mountains
        rumble. Still a few dream of dust and warmth and stillness,
                of days  of  brass  and  sunlight, and of the  small
                truths  which  are  so  much  more  important   than
                the large ones.

                A  memory  of  a  memory,  perhaps, but the 
                dragons know.  Silence, and light, and gold.
                Truth.

-- Alison Stewart
Copyright 1996