Interlude: Few Were We

Few were we, the wanderers, the lone, seekers of obscure fist-fights. Nomads who navigated entire continents disregarding all the maps that came before, knowing those could only lead down the path of another mans heart. Gypsy lovers of the broken branch, archers with our arrows drawn lit to guide the way. Desiring only to see with fresh eyes, intuitions filthy with experience, hides ruff, paws damp beneath the calluses, drunk on moonshine, teeth full with gristle. Few were we, who had gone to the ends of the earth only to tumble suspiciously down the deep ravines and hungry precipices. Our falling bodies clearing dust, thorn, and path, where even fewer still would leap willingly, with purpose. Not as guides but as battle hymns, singsong odes to great men, the campfire ghosts we honor. Few were we, so few not a single one of us could escape the sheet of loneliness that draped our wind-worn shoulders and raw eroded faces. That same sheet that kept our legs tangled in half slumber thru cold winter beatings. So few were we, a single glance from a stranger need not discern our sadness, we wore it with unmistakable identity like thieves of wine. We carried with us always the look of the hunted even while we tracked the great beast. We sang only the songs of the damned, the blues, the wild open storm we called home, lover, and adversary. We loved true, having one condition, that we would always leave, always return someday hiding strange gifts as better men.  Pulling foreign coin from behind the ears of our children. Grown in the eyes of the land, forged under the weight of her beauty. We died at dawn, stabbed thru the heart with elk antlers, thru the lungs with spades, thru the livers with thick oak barrel spinters, wearing only the names of our brothers. Need not bury us with our treasure; once the ashes scatter we are traveling her round legs once more. Let the funeral pyres burn and the great sea captains return to guide the tides again. Let the earth shake and rattle and kick the Rock'n'Roll back into the boots. The course is set for war, smile for it. Rush to it, leave your belongings behind. One kiss from her is worth more than all your life, absolves you of all you consider your debt. You need only to climb something very high, voyage steps to the edge with eyes closed and take a deep breath to see it. Hunker down low on your haunches between blades of desert grass and run to taste it. Lean and bury your face in the vineyard grapes, source of vagrant elation, to smell it. But you must leave, to be with it. It travels far and swings wide. So tell me goodbye, dear girl, dear campanero, like I tell you.  

-R. Vigilantics