Smoke and Memory

        They gather, in hour after sunset. around the fire they assemble;some are friends others are strangers.This moment is somehow delicately intimate and frighteningly unpersonable .  The stars shine the world spins and fire burns .

      slowly they form small groups.  little islands of hopeful dreams bright thoughts shine in the infinite night . the evening breeze's dances through between the branches of the fig tree ; slowly  the Breeze awakens the simple flame's Lonely child.

Smoke drifts formless in the night unable to reach these bright islands alone .She cries out unheard by people who gather in her mothers radiant light .with a gust she is no longer alone ;The loving embrace of the wind carries her forward to the islands of hopeful dreams .

Slowly she dances with them.  hearing their  stories ;they speak of music ,new homes and friends far away slowly she drifts from story to story she listens unseen and unknown a child soon to be forgotten carried off by the one who knows her best; come the morning her mother will be just a passing memory like so much smoke in the wind .

The Dream

       The Dreaming comes into sharp focus with a kiss:  soft,warm, with the faintest hint of citrus.Two lovers, bodies entwined,  whispering promises of things to come,  things that might yet be. They Struggle against each other,  both trying in vain to overcome the distance between them, the struggle against time, knowing they have so little of it; life is filled with so many struggles, and this is the sweetest one.

      The second kiss builds upon the first, slowly lifting their hopes, the background of the dreaming fades;  only the lovers are in focus. Sun-kissed skin soon meets skin untouched by Sol's loving rays.The sweat of the two lovers intermingled creates ambrosia;  never has anything tasted so sweet;  never have they crossed this Rubicon .

    Countless kisses soon follow; they increase in frequency, each growing  in intensity. Soft moans echo across the Dreaming for what seems  an eternity...  She gasps....  the very foundation of the Dreaming shakes,  almost falling into the waking world. His embrace  steadies her, pulling her close, and  their eyes meet: his the blue green of the ocean, and  hers a golden brown.  With this meeting they know... they know that together they could be more ......they know that this may be a dream ..... and dreams are not real.

Statement

I told her that I loved her...a simple, but immense statement, and in half a whisper she asked a simple but infinitely complex question. "What does that mean? In shock I answered that I have never been asked such a question. "The few times I have said such a thing, it was a drunken moment or a solemn vow  quickly reciprocated, but never questioned .... I started to speak without thought. Have I not read about love from all of the great thinkers? How could I not have an answer for such a simple question? It battles in our burning agricultures, her sword hidden in her pinions may wound you,  and it is a gift of the divine,  or so I have been told by wiser men than myself. When my voice gave her other men's answers she remained unconvinced.  I looked into her soft  eyes, somehow more gold than brown now, unsure of what to say. She spoke,  her voice pure like the first drop of rain during a summer storm, and  her words still echo in my mind: "love is what we make of it.  It can be all things to all people. I asked, when you say you love me..." I silenced her with a gentle embrace: simple words for a complex question.   "I know not what love means. " She pulls me closer to her -  I taste her lips on mine.  The touch clears the tempest of my mind and slows the thunder of my heart.  She whispers that I am foolish, and that is enough for now...it is enough for now.

You ask....

Does she dance with me, or do I dance with her? Beauty such as hers, she must be mad  - her eyes are bright suns; sweat glistens on her unmasked face. I dance with her... She dances with me...the rhythm we keep,  is it  my heart? Or is it hers?  They beat as one, or so she whispers.....

In the moment I am with her,  that precious fleeting moment!  The heat!  The passion!  The sound of two hearts beating in  unison overwhelms me!  I withdraw into the dark behind my mask; i hide from her .... for reasons unknown. She is as the sun; her light is bright and pure. Never has this light touched my face,  shielded as I am by the many masks I have forged in life.

She wears no masks...perhaps the were stolen? Broken? In all likelihood they were just cast off. The light of life shines on her face in a way that it has never shown on mine. She calls me back into that moment. Her eyes call to mine...with her I cast off my mask, perhaps foolishly, perhaps not. There is no time for thought under the bright sun of emotion; no time for thought during the dance of the mad......

Shine

The child of the celestial heavens walks alone, in the short time between father's descent and mother's rise . Though the child is lonely without  family, he knows that the shine will bring friends long absent, so he shines in a world at dusk: an insignificant glimmering in a world not yet night but no longer day - the glimmer is enough .
Soon the stars wake from their sleep, wake to the sounds of camaraderie . Laughter soon fills the endless sky, and the soft green light of the freshly woken stars slowly shines down on the gathering. Laughter turns to joyous song, a herald of things to come.

The rain comes suddenly, cascading from clouds the color of gun metal. They dance knowing that the very heavens are weeping with joy that they have come together,  for what is rain other than the emotion of the divine? Soon the dancing gives way to sleep,  just as the night gives way to the dawn.

Neruda Dances In The Dreaming

Neruda Dances In The Dreaming.





“Tonight I write the saddest of lines”


I hear this verse again and again in my dreams .words are a currency rarely spent in the Dreaming.


“Write for example the night sky is shattered and the blue stars shiver in the distance “


This rings out. The Dreaming Shifts to a land of winter the sky filled with memories, all ablaze shining like so many bright diamonds in the dark night of the Dreaming.


“The night wind revolves in the sky and sings”


The cold breeze numbs my skin .her voice is haunting in its beauty sending shivers down my spine, shivers that have little to with the cold.


“Tonight I write the saddest of lines.”


A pen is in my hand, until now unnoticed, I write under an Infinite sky.


“I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.”


The words flow from the pen like blood from a wound.


“Through nights like this one I held her in my arms I kissed her again and again under the endless sky”


Even in the land of the Dreaming when her lips touch mine the smell of the ocean washes over me like a wave. The taste of salt is overwhelming.


“She loved me and sometimes I loved her too. How could someone not have loved her great still eyes?”


Her eyes are dark pools reflecting the broken lights of memory; they are rimmed with crystal tears glittering as the fall to the sand.


“Tonight I write the saddest of line’s to think that I do not have her .to feel that I have lost her.”


The Waves wash away the marks of her passing.


“To hear the immense night, still more immense without her and the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.”


The echo of her sobs fill the Dreaming .thought is lost there is only sound.


“What does it matter that my love could not keep her? The night sky is shattered and she is not with me”


The Sun strikes the edge of the Dreaming….