My Conversation with Clouds

     I climbed to the top of lighthouse, stood perilously on the protective railing and shook my fist at the approaching storm. I shouted her name three times at the top of my voice.  Once in frustration, once in painful longing and once just to hear myself scream. 

     A passing cloud stopped for a moment and called me a ninny and encouraged me to jump.

      “After all,” it breezed, “a man in your condition has no right being a man at all.”

 

     I sneered at the cloud and asked why he should know. He was, after all, a cloud and had no experience with matters of the heart. I spit to the jagged rocks below.

     “I have no control over my own path,” said the cloud, much less the path of another cloud. To think that I do, would simply be rubbish.” 

     The cloud puffed, blowing me off my balance.  At first I resisted and then, figuring the cloud was right, I held out my arms and leapt from the railing.

     As I fell, the clouds parted and the suns rays shown strongly on the rocks below, creating the most beautiful haloed images and shadow.  I started to cry.  Just before I met my fate on the sharp and fragmented rocks below, the suns rays caught me and cradled me in their warmth, slowing my decent and placing me on flat patch of stone, the water lapping at my feet in relief.

    I stared at the sun and thanked her profusely, “what might I do to repay my debt of gratitude?” 

     The sun winked at me and said, “Quit being a ninny, and never, ever listen to a cloud.

April Burning

     

     April bleated, not unlike the desperate cries of a sick and dying goat that had given birth to stillborn twins.  The weather was as undecided as a woman betrothed by station and awaiting the first glimpse of her prince fair…or not. I sharpened my blade and packed my mount in earnest, kissing the forehead of my loved ones and bedding my mistress to infuse hard memory in her breast, so softer hands did not find their way to my rightful salvation prior to my return.

     Springtime was the time of blood letting and scraping of bone. A time to refill coffers and take provisions that would allow summer work to take purchase and provide again for the bleak winter months when the cold handcuffed working men and women from plowing , planting and sowing. The Gods would provide, but not for a man who was not willing to put chivalry and empathy in a sack and store it until he took as many heads as necessary to collect that which he needed to provide for his family and his village. Death was as necessary as any of the harbingers of spring. Blood was but preserve to be spread evenly and thickly, to be eaten with morning toast and a generous portion of salt pork. If his hands slipped, or his mind hesitated but once at the thought of sparing even one of Gods gifts he could forget the mantle of being a free and prosperous people.  The first soul taken would be blessed and not unlike a kiss from the Goddess herself.

     Springtime was the time of blood letting and scraping of bone.

Relax

Put your toes in that sand, quick sand
Your jaw line melts into a fond sigh of recollection
The water washes worries from between your toes
And you toast to the gods of this days beauty
 
Its not home that has you pining for the simple things
There is nothing simple about eating your routine
Puff pastry moments are sweet but go down too fast
Here the flavors of the moment drip over the sides of your tongue
 
So tell me your deepest desire in crosstitch detail
Sew my lips shut with a touch from your perfect finger
With a wave and a smile you walk away knowing
That I was here and I filled your day with pearls
 
When sunset arrives with its finality and promise
When the silver fish of ideas are slippery but still
When the beating of our hearts gives way to shallow gasps
You think of me in this place and breathe a heavy sigh
 
Its time to relax.....

Already

     She was made of bits and scraps of paper, colored, white and the occasional black. There was no rhyme or reason as to the shape of the bits, but like snowflakes, each seemed to be wrapped in an intriguing and often beguiling pattern that represented beauty and experience. She didn’t make the pieces, they were shaped by others, not God’s or masters, but artists, each responsible for shaping one or more scraps and then placing them, sometimes harshly and at times with the gentleness and finesse of a mother’s hand, into the collage that was her very being.  The scraps were never glued or pinned at the edges, they were free floating and loose, subject to change with the slightest breeze, but at times, not even a hurricane could dislodge them. This was when she was at her best and happiest. Entropy would cause decay with some of the paper and it seemed the more brightly colored pieces would break down more rapidly while the black scraps would last for what seemed forever, no amount of conviction could force them to fade.

     As this month’s principal artist to the woman, I worked tirelessly in an effort to secure a permanent position in her being.  My strategy was to fabricate our coalescing souls from the finest rag vellum in shades that bled emotion. Violent reds, the deepest purples, oranges that flared and burned at the edges of her black pieces, greens that settled her immutable personality and fed with nurture and acceptance. To avoid the black, I had to listen with a canine’s ear and sniff the air to catch the scent of irrationality and misunderstanding and cloak it in truth and loves rouge. I cut with shears that were sharp and precise and I worked through the night with a passion fed by the desire to make us whole, to finish the masterpiece that would leave her breathless. After a fortnight’s work and before a deep but fitful sleep I stepped back and looked at my creation and smiled. That night, I dreamed of a picnic with crisp soda crackers, the tang of Manchego and the blanket of a full bodied red wine coating my tongue and softening my mind.  She grabbed my hand and looked into my eyes unable to speak, the deep green pieces that I had worked so hard to get just so, deepening into brown and then black. The ivory porcelain I had given to her as skin grayed and cracked audibly and when she opened her mouth, instead of the cacophony of blues in a sweet spring sky, an ochre dust puffed, whirled and eddied until it enveloped her entire head.

     I awoke abruptly with pain in my heart.  I rushed to my table to look once more at my creation to find nothing more than a small pile of dust and a note scribbled in charcoal.

     I am…..already

     I threw my shears and paper into the fire and fed for the rest of my days on regret and cold porridge and whispered often to the birds outside my window;

    “She was….already”.