Gilded Righteousness: The Legend of the White Snake

Gilded Righteousness:
The Legend of the White Snake

I remember where
her journey began.

Slithering,
a sliver of shiny silver,
reflecting golden light
gliding in water.

She was white-jade pale,
pushed downstream by her luck
to the pill of immortality.
500-year magic slipped
(just like that)
into her stomach
making her human too.

She became human,
and left our lake.

While I,
the small terrapin left behind
In the mushy sand
beneath the currents,
stayed.

The poison of jealousy appeared
in a porcelain dish,
but I didn’t take it.
How could I?
I sought the path of righteousness,
to rid this world of demons.

Days passed like rapid waters of a river
until they became years weaving through a forest.
I refined my skills,
like grinding an iron rod
into a fine embroidery needle.

Bones shifted,
skin stretched,
muscles pulsed and pulled.
My heart thumped in my chest,
trying to break out while
my body around it burned and morphed and changed.
I saw the sky crack before it fell on me.
Then darkness engulfed…

I awoke on the bank of the river,
When I looked at the reflection in its mirror–
a human.

And a Buddhist I became,
purging demons to cleanse this world of evil.

But then I caught wind of her,
the white-jade snake

She enticed a human,
A foolish human.

Such trickery and deceit!
What an idiot he is to fall for such schemes.
I have got to stop her.

And tried I did to break them up.

But my foolishness.

Had I not already known their fates intertwined?
Had I not known their love to be a compass,
always finding their way
back to each other?

My foolishness indeed.

I meant well,
I really did,
I never wanted to cause harm;
I simply wanted to defeat evil.

But the clutches of love spares no one,
not even her.

But our battle’s over,
the scars tattoed
and the gold-tainted lenses of righteousness
removed from my eyes.

I see now
that no mortal,
no demon,
no god
can ever break them apart.

But that time already departed,
To a place beyond
Every horizon,
Star,
Cloud,
And ocean,
A place far beyond our reach.

Poor Macbeth learned
“What’s done cannot be undone,”
And how might I know that?
Well, you’d be bored too residing in the stomach of a crab
eternally,

But now now,

that is a story for another time.