To Whom I Loved,

 

I extend to you now the tendrils of memory that so often slip between my thoughts,

those sentiments I alone harbor and suppress,

of a moment suspended within the arms of Time herself...

 

Upon the rock where we repose, the delicate moss spreads feathery fingers,

stretching, reaching across all parts, minding not that we tread upon its being.

The birds dance, flit across mirroring water,

dive in and out and pay us no sympathy. They chatter and laugh.

I speak not but smile. I feel light as a feather; all the time sinking heavily into myself, drowning in myself, struggling to swim.

You smile and speak. I laugh, joy fighting in me; in me, the water closing over my head.

 

How wide is the world? Not what I can see, and touch, but that which I can feel?

The world inside stretches far, the edges seep deep, embedded in me and inescapable.

I probe but the tips, feel only the surface of the inner lake which is deeper than I can imagine, and cannot express when something Other comes out of the depths of me.

I have no words for them. Some are not as fit to gaze upon as the rest.

 

I sit here next to you as I have sat never before but many times, familiar and new, sunken at the bottom of myself,

the sun glinting rays off miniscule waves,

the trees with their bare arms whispering to the wind.

I reach down and take in hand a stone, not unusually shaped, not properly shaped for skipping

and yet I cast it as far as my reach will allow me.

It sinks in deep; you laugh and float me back up to the surface of my lake where I grab you as a buoy, where I won’t let go.

 

How wide is the world? Does it encompass all? The sad, the warm, the delicate, the strange?

I wonder as I laugh and the water kisses the rocks how to speak of those that swim,

not in this lake in front of me but the one in me, the one deep and dark and bright.

I float with you then as we repose on that rock in the wood, on that rock on the lake,

and I feel myself sinking no longer.

 

The birds are no longer calling, the sun has past its prime and the moss beneath me has given up

the warmth of the rays for the chill of the stone. The moon is taking domain, a soft light.

I am lifted up and out, warm despite the chilled breath of the wind down my neck.

I speak; you smile and I laugh. Those that swim harshly in my world have been hunted,

they cower, and now only the soft glide.

 

Forgo the parable,

and seek the light.

From Elana,

Forever Ago.