Stairway to Wonderland

Past giant mountains, which collide with the blue linings of the abyss,

Past jagged mountains of frost which wander over patches of green and blue,

past the sailing ships on a blue bowl, without a destination, like poltergeists in a graveyard,

Is an eternal ocean of waves, crowned with froth.

A pasture of stillness, filled with inanimate, gliding sheep.

A sun-warm stairway spirals down from the ocean and the pasture,

Faint, translucent rays trickle down ethereal steps of cotton.

A stairway of fissures and cracks: a porous border from light's eternal grasp.

Bright, mustard rays of silk cascade down to the ground—

Rays reflected from the dewdrops on emerald prairies, during a winter morning.

Nearby, rail tracks of hazy mists and vapors are formed,

Pushing out and carrying forth the nuances of life's fire.

The shifting stairway points to a curved precipice rising enough to meet heaven,

Bending back to its transparent base, aping the coconut trees which line the beaches,

Is a precipice with a bouncy and fluffy exterior, a mountain, composed of woolen bubbles.

Torrents of biting wind push and blow to disfigure and shift the floating water bodies, yet again.

The precipice, its base forgotten behind mists, is distorted into a cosmic turtle, basking with a a ruddy hue, 

Time and its many heads jut out of the shell like pestering weeds.

 The turtle transforms into a perched eagle, blanketed by a celestial blaze, which finally turns into the jester's hat, rich with mirrors.

Finally, the stairway stops, is dissolved; the eternal fields, an infinite carpet of mountainous vapor columns, remain.

Nothing remains but blue, a fall, from the carpet of vapors, without slopes, Without a stairway, like the distinct border between the shore and the waves: 

The end.

Aryan Shafat studies in grade nine of Scholastica School, Dhaka.