You searched the categories for: 'sun',
Mockingbird
what could there be, worse,
than shaking off the black dog
on the sunniest of singing, birded,
mocking spring days
I looked for you to come out from behind the clouds again
your hair waving like jettisoned energy
into the dark, trailing spirals,
matter,
into the blind
void of life, imagination
potential
spring.
The sky burnt, the clouds hung,
the sun shot,
the sea moaned, the cliffs fell,
the sand shrank...
the rocks were dumb
I was not.
You ceased.
Even the air failed and died.
Sarabande
The Don shares his wisdom, and for that I’m grateful – but I wish he could impart his courage as well as his experience. I told him of my dilemma – my paralysis of inaction, which afflicts me each time I find myself wanting to speak of my feelings: I am rendered mute before the very object of my emotion. He looked at me kindly.
“There have been so very few people who were rays of sunshine in my life. I knew someone who was just such a shaft of light. She came into my life, and her joy threw shadows from everyone around her. Her smile flung away the clouds and her laughing eyes made the world a better place.
“I was in what I thought was my heyday. I thought to distinguish myself, my witty barbs and unconventional manner were magnetic. I revelled in my sharp limelight. My dart words hooked and dazzled, and I held myself guru-like in my acolytes' esteem.
“She had been away for some time, and I felt her absence as though it were a long dark night. When she returned, I put on my display. I was, I thought, on fire. My wit was my peacock feather, and in response to some small remark from a voice behind me, I shot off an offhand and withering remark. On turning round I saw it was her. She lowered her eyes, said nothing, but politely listened to me as I continued to excavate caverns of shame with my foolish words. And then, she left.
“I heard that she had spoken of my insult, and had said she thought me a brute. When I saw her a few days later, though I wanted to scream my sorrow and beg her forgiveness, my anger and pride kept me from it, and she left me in silence - a proud man guarding my horde of nothing.
“I never saw her again. I looked for her, every day, until it was time for me to leave that place. I accepted that it was too late. I never told her what I thought she was; how she lit up my eyes as though I were only half-alive when she was not with me.”
Though I could see he was drifting into a reverie, I asked, “Do you think she would be surprised, looking back on this, if you could tell her now?”
“I hope she has forgotten me entirely. But you – you should not hesitate.”
For Jo L. - wherever she may be
Download: Bach - BWV 1002 Sarabande.
