SHOFAR

I walked into a room outfitted in ornate hammered silver. A glow that seemed almost sentient and breathing moved in the room. I looked over and saw, before a slightly tarnished silver mirror, a great curved shofar. It looked like ivory with tooled metal ornamentation. I picked it up and blew into it, and a woman walked through a doorway nearby. I don't remember what she said, but intelligence seemed to be crackling in the air around her. I was unnerved by her.

I dug a mineshaft into myself, the underworld, and strung a tattered line of incandescence to light the way. It flickers and sways, and lets off a feeble heat against the dark and cold; I know that it will be extinguished soon. I first came to the entrance of the mine in the lean hours of darkness, among worn down ancient mountains. A strange little family stood around me there, drawn to me for survival, repulsed by fear. I stood terrified at the mouth, unable to go down, but certain that I was bound to descend very soon. See the stars blaze overhead... will they burn for me down there?

A huge 3 masted ship has moored on the eastern end of the island. The wind always seems to pick up as the sun goes down, and today as I walked back from Elephant Seal Cove, I saw the night fog blowing in rose tendrils around it.

The crystalline iceplant bled vermilion as I descended toward the sea lions. Waves of pelicans leapt off the cliff and coasted in the updraft at my approach. I got to the bare ground of the promontory and found the audacious pinnipeds; their heads were regally lifted as they galumphed about. Disturbingly human coughs arose from the group, many of whom were lying down in rows looking like slick, hulking sardines.

I scaled back up the steep face and watched the bulbous and disfigured sun disappear behind the vapor wall. A sharp sliver of moon rose up through the coreopsis stand.