We wait for a cloud to cross the road--stand and watch it wisp toward us as if it was an ordinary thing.
Inches from our feet, the land drops away into trees so darkly green they glow blue.
Serrated tops fold ridge over ridge far away into the west.
It looks for all the world as if we could step off.
Just step off and walk back across them to that day on the divide
when we were going places we'd never been.
On the continent's backbone we'd imagined melted snow flowing down either side beneath us toward opposite ocean, walked through congregated mist into the clear horizon of countless, rolling, smoky miles.
White particles of moisture catch my thoughts and carry them back, a warning, a blessing for us, standing there on that other mountain then.
Be careful, I think. But be unafraid. Some of what comes next will be hard. Hold hands. Don't let go.
The cloud moves through us, moves beyond, exploring treetops, sinking onto sharp branches, seeping into stony ground.
In a long, slow caress the westward sun turns you to gold. Your freckles are gone now, I know, and time has touched your hair, but I can't see you as other might.
The sun is always in my eyes when I look at you.
Facing north we drive the spine of the mountains; sunset gilds us on one side and limns the darkness on the other. The space between us shifts with golden shadows.
You open a hand, I fill it with my own. The rain begins.
Drops spatter, flatten, and lengthen across the windscreen, joining, clinging, sliding like lovers in sinuous patterns across the glass.
They dance for a moment in the fractured, fleeting illumination of headlamps, then fling themselves headlong into the deep and velvet dark.
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| Will ride out on the same clown she rode in on. |
Thanks for visiting. Come again soon.
Leann
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