Post by Ellie on Jul 14, 2004 19:49:10 GMT
My words are my own. My writing is my own. My worlds are my own. The throbbing life within... That, I merely record.
The pig burst from the underbrush, scattering leaves, blood and water in a golden-red sunlit spray before disappearing into the other side of the creek. A group of boys with spears dashed after the old sow, and then halted when they saw me.
There was the sound of the animal plunging onwards, and then a water-silence of birds and air.
I stared intently at the front lad, wanting to understand the light in his eyes, the wildness... but it faded too quickly, leaving me achingly relieved. He spoke, and his voice was not strange to me, though I had never heard it before.
“Maiden... river-daughter... What is your name?”<br>
“I am myself,” I replied with a giggle, and dove back into myself, the water ripping me into a thousand tears. I sighed against my smooth-worn stones, and the wind overhead answered in a moan, gently caressing my surfaces with the scent of thyme and honey. This was where I belonged... I willed myself to forget the fire in the eyes of the stranger, then it was gone, and my only memory of him was one of many footprints in my sandy shallows, to be washed clean again by my cool hands.
Spring was moving, and I had errands to run. Down to the edge of my father the sea, to fetch the salmon for their run, and back upstream again, back to my birth, where the rains of my mother sang sweetly as tears. I am sorrow, never grieving... I am tears, never crying... I am youth, ever running... I am tears, I am tears, I am tears... never ever crying... only singing and laughing to the ancient tunes, ever-renewing...
Yet, as summer grew hot and my duties less pressing, I found myself haunting that crossing where I had met fire in the eyes of a stranger. Sometimes I stood in the shallows in the form of one of the humankind, hearing things with their ears, seeing things with their strange eyes, feeling the air strange on my bare skin... More often, I was myself, lying in my bed, feeling the willow-branches trailing over me, stones below, sky above, seeing everything and nothing, hearing with the ears of Nature, at once present and remote.
However, for all my waiting, it was on one of my errands that I saw him again. I was unfolding lilies in a quiet backwater, and he was standing on a bridge, leaning down, staring at the water with a strange, quiet intensity. I slipped back into the river and vanished as he whirled around.
“Always almost...” he murmured with a voice like many currents, and I swam directly beneath him, watching curiously now. He was looking away at the setting sun, which lit his face like that of a fire-god of old. Then a single tear fell from his molten eyes, breaking my view of him into a thousand circling shards. I could taste the saltiness of that droplet, like a faint memory of the sea. It pulled me to him, and I swam up, breaking the surface. The last light of the sun enveloped my coming in seeming flame.
What can be written that is new? His touch and mine mingling, fire and water and ice and everything in between... I was lost, lost from the first time I saw him breathless from the pursuit of a wild beast. Strange that water should find itself attracted to fire... but it was not to last. I was a river-daughter, and had my duties to which to attend. I never did tell him my name... Why should I have? I am myself, and life is but a lark.
* * *
Other Fires
Other Fires
The pig burst from the underbrush, scattering leaves, blood and water in a golden-red sunlit spray before disappearing into the other side of the creek. A group of boys with spears dashed after the old sow, and then halted when they saw me.
There was the sound of the animal plunging onwards, and then a water-silence of birds and air.
I stared intently at the front lad, wanting to understand the light in his eyes, the wildness... but it faded too quickly, leaving me achingly relieved. He spoke, and his voice was not strange to me, though I had never heard it before.
“Maiden... river-daughter... What is your name?”<br>
“I am myself,” I replied with a giggle, and dove back into myself, the water ripping me into a thousand tears. I sighed against my smooth-worn stones, and the wind overhead answered in a moan, gently caressing my surfaces with the scent of thyme and honey. This was where I belonged... I willed myself to forget the fire in the eyes of the stranger, then it was gone, and my only memory of him was one of many footprints in my sandy shallows, to be washed clean again by my cool hands.
Spring was moving, and I had errands to run. Down to the edge of my father the sea, to fetch the salmon for their run, and back upstream again, back to my birth, where the rains of my mother sang sweetly as tears. I am sorrow, never grieving... I am tears, never crying... I am youth, ever running... I am tears, I am tears, I am tears... never ever crying... only singing and laughing to the ancient tunes, ever-renewing...
Yet, as summer grew hot and my duties less pressing, I found myself haunting that crossing where I had met fire in the eyes of a stranger. Sometimes I stood in the shallows in the form of one of the humankind, hearing things with their ears, seeing things with their strange eyes, feeling the air strange on my bare skin... More often, I was myself, lying in my bed, feeling the willow-branches trailing over me, stones below, sky above, seeing everything and nothing, hearing with the ears of Nature, at once present and remote.
However, for all my waiting, it was on one of my errands that I saw him again. I was unfolding lilies in a quiet backwater, and he was standing on a bridge, leaning down, staring at the water with a strange, quiet intensity. I slipped back into the river and vanished as he whirled around.
“Always almost...” he murmured with a voice like many currents, and I swam directly beneath him, watching curiously now. He was looking away at the setting sun, which lit his face like that of a fire-god of old. Then a single tear fell from his molten eyes, breaking my view of him into a thousand circling shards. I could taste the saltiness of that droplet, like a faint memory of the sea. It pulled me to him, and I swam up, breaking the surface. The last light of the sun enveloped my coming in seeming flame.
What can be written that is new? His touch and mine mingling, fire and water and ice and everything in between... I was lost, lost from the first time I saw him breathless from the pursuit of a wild beast. Strange that water should find itself attracted to fire... but it was not to last. I was a river-daughter, and had my duties to which to attend. I never did tell him my name... Why should I have? I am myself, and life is but a lark.