Only memories remain The strength of this love, like a mid-west thunderstorm building out on the plains and working its way east, dark forbidding and filled with power washed over me. It was a fate that could not be avoided; therefore, I embraced it. I could feel it, could taste it like rain, and smell it like electricity in the air. There is no sense to it. So, I hide deep inside a wall of denial, a darkness of mind and silence of thought. I seek a way to accept what she has done, but my heart, where such things reveal themselves, like rainbows after thunderstorms, can never forget. Her words still linger in small echoes. Her presence is still warm against my heart. Time we didn’t have. Time slips away like night toward day a certainty of loss that cannot be reversed. Only the memories remain. It was a summer day, filled with sunshine and the smell of grass and wildflowers. The hardwoods were deep and shadowed, but streaked with long fingers of bright sunlight. A thin lacework of clouds drifted across the blue sky. A slight breeze wafted off the river that flowed with sluggish indifference. Sunlight sparkled off the water in brilliant diamond bursts. The river became a silver-tipped satin sheet. The tan of her skin glowed like the surface of water caught in sunrise. Her body curved and flowed like the river with grace and supple ease. The day wore on, and twilight was deepening. I watched the sunset wash lavender and gold across her skin, as if making a vain attempt to paint her in a better light, but the sun soon disappeared below the horizon, leaving only its crimson wake to light the world and leave the daylight, hazy and dim with twilight’s slow decent. Night descended in deep, soft blackness. The sky was awash in stars, but thick with summer heat, making the air feel compressed and heavy beneath the pinpricked sky. Color faded from her skin. Night’s shadows closed about us as the moon came up and lent its radiance to the river in a dazzling silver sweep. It was like a memory held forth all in its own, shimmering like quicksilver in the starlight, whispering to me in seductive tones and making promises it could not keep. Overhead, the sky was crosshatched by limbs. Dappled shadows were cast earthward in a tangled net by the bright moonlight directly over the trees. It was a phosphorus presence in the immensity of the sky’s vast sweep. Stars sprinkled the indigo firmament like grains of brilliant white sand scattered on black velvet, making it light enough to make out the shape of the trees and the soft movement of leaves and branches in the slow evening wind. The night was as soft as velvet. It cradled us in its arms, easing us towards sleep. She became a small, faint whiteness within the dark, as ethereal as gossamer standing out against the hardwoods, a dark and silent silhouette against the starry backdrop of the southern horizon. And then, the memory fades. My mind, borne to other places and times on the wings of thought, where the night, still, empty-feeling and cloud-silent, eases me through the gloom, past shadows pooling in narrow corners. Yet, her voice still whispers to me in the sound of the wind, and the feel of what I cannot see—even in my dreams—still remains.
Posted on: Mon, 14 Jul 2014 10:52:22 +0000
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