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A.J. Huffman
repetition breeds fascination. Garish
contrast to more malleable surroundings.
Vision is forced
to their direction.
They are their own
gravity calling eye
and ear (and heart?)
to listen
to the timing
of the variation
of their beat.
Motion develops into trance. Count
the steps, the stripes, the tails, trailing
against the grass. These walking
ribbons of wonder wave
even when they are still.
Black, white, black, white.
The pattern
whispers a wonder[ous lullaby].
Black, white, goodbye, goodnight.
Full herd: 30 head
standing
side by side or nose to tail.
Either will flip focus, turn
into a strange kaleidoscopic swirl.
Stripes move of their own accord.
Drip.
Slip. Slide to the next
body. Or maybe stretch
to embrace the entire crowd,
a cloud of communion. A site
to be savored, swallowed
like sun.
Sun bakes distinctive beast. Branded
bold against a world of solid, it screams.
Stripes have a way of dividing, driving
unfriendly eyes to their front. Forward,
they roam, run, ruining the calming
vision of the plains. They intersect
with prowling prides. Dreams
of destruction rise. With fang and fight,
they collide. Some survive, but all are marred
by battle's belligerent, residual hue.
Distinction sometimes falls
to disadvantage. Focus seems foreign,
strained, a pain seeding at the edges
of conscious thought. It becomes too
much, drains itself. Soft,
the bold emblazoning stripes blur,
amalgamate, consume
each other
and the eye
of the beholder
they anchor. Nothing
divides in this bastardized distraction.
Colors streak, lines falter, opposite
bolds boil into an easy shade
of seeping gray.