He saw her there, alone, before he crossed<\/p>\n
the Guadalquivir, on the other river bank<\/p>\n
beside the mountain of oyster shells that grew<\/p>\n
through her long years. Each shell was husked apart<\/p>\n
by calloused fingertips and the ripe tongue<\/p>\n
was torn outward and flipped end over end<\/p>\n
across the ancient sun to fall in her basket.<\/p>\n
She was even older than the river and measured<\/p>\n
her age by fossilized sediment beds.<\/p>\n
When she rose up to greet the stranger, she<\/p>\n
stood like a black, gutted-out coastal tower,<\/p>\n
and he, who had passed over the yielding delta,<\/p>\n
stepped forward, channeling the divining rod<\/p>\n
of his mind into her subterranean lake<\/p>\n
of inner life. Her soul grew wings and flew<\/p>\n
away as a butterfly, but he took out<\/p>\n
his net and unsheathed his pins and pursued her.<\/p>\n
The gust of his unwelcome presence startled<\/p>\n
the black and white storks nesting in the pines<\/p>\n
and launched them upwards into the bright sun.<\/p>\n
So much dislodged radiance and feathers rained<\/p>\n
down between them, that it was as if the earth<\/p>\n
had spoken, shielding with black and white light<\/p>\n
the inner oyster of her virgin soul.<\/p>\n
And he was blinded, snapping shut his sight<\/p>\n
of the white pearl of ancestral wisdom within<\/p>\n
her depths, locked up from those who had forgotten,<\/p>\n
which left her as she had always been, immortal.<\/p>\n
By Anthony Walstorm<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Publishing Credits, \u201cTullia, The Oyster Woman\u201d<\/em><\/u><\/p>\n \u00a0 Tullia, The Oyster Woman He saw her there, alone, before he crossed the Guadalquivir, on the other river bank beside the mountain of oyster shells that grew through her long years. Each shell was husked apart by calloused fingertips and the ripe tongue was torn outward and flipped end over end across the ancient […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":117,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n