It seems so cold, as we're in it, but soon the burst of warmth, of yellow and gold will come upon us, and it will take us up, and we will forget the coldness as one forgets the fear of birth.
Such was that time when I, along with she, spent our summer in a house by the water. The quiet rippling was made clear through the sound of the thrush and the babble of warm, fragrant air. The sun would slant downward, sharing with us that close intimacy of the mind-bound idea, and though we would say not a word, still would we be found dancing on the golden grass before the porch.
That summer, yes, and all other like it, are forever fixed within my memory. I did not plan it, nor I think did she, and all was made for the better because of it. The spontaneity of spring! The gaiety of the young summer! The air is rich, then; young and happy, hopeful, the end so far out of view. The very voice of nature seems to call out to the far corners of that summer house, calling all within to join in the celebration of the youthful life!
She and I, together, shared a life in that place. We had books, indeed, and the coursing music of voiceless song to keep us company on this quiet island. Not a single meaningless sound would penetrate that sunny place, nor did our old pebbled road support the harsh grid of the technic, and for each desire to know what went beyond our curtain, there stood a real diversion to occupy our minds.
I want to go back, she said one day as I passed plates through the clean-cut counter, spoiled still with the nourishment of the natural pallet. I want to swim again in that water we cannot see, for the blueness of the sky here weighs heavily upon my shoulders.
In time, I replied, looking now to the east, to the path our sun must have taken in its crackling journey over the space without. There will still be time. We are young, yet, and full of life. Listen, I called, to the singing of the harp!
But there is no harp! she said. How can I hear it?
No, I replied, that is not the way of it. The harp is made of the sound we hear, and waiting gets us nothing. Make, then, the sound of innocence, and we shall be back where we were.
The dishes were few, and soon we had them anew.
I often spent my time, in the early mornings, sitting by the kitchen window. The sound of the water was clearest, then, and I swear I could see it before me. The dew upon the golden grass whispered of things to come, and often they were pleasant thoughts that passed through my mind. She was not yet up, or if she were, she did not intrude upon the silence of that place. The window before my eyes was as a hearth in the winter, when the sun has long set and all others have gone into quietness. The subtle trickle of air through the logs, that plays with the warm fingers of air and light, opens up a soft, intimate world for me. The morning of summer, then, is just as the night of winter, for we seek these things wherever we go.
To the porch, now, for she has awakened, and surely wants for company.
The front porch is surely the most beautiful and perfect place in this small house, screened-in but open to the air and sound and life of summer, just as we were. Still, I do not remain here for long; the beauty of this place, the warm yellow paint of the walls and wood pillars, the cracking paint, the creaking wood, it puts the ghost of fear in me. I know, when I look at this porch, overlooking the expanse of our world, how delicate our happiness must always be, how easily it runs from us. It is, I reflect as I move to sit beside her in a white wicker chair, just as I said a while ago. The music of the harp is only existent for the yearning within us, for that immortal beauty of trust.
The harp sings softly today, its chords never fading as they drift away.
It's her idea, I tell myself as I pack a lunch and some water. I was in the study, the evening lights falling just so upon my book, when she came upon me, asking for the chance to widen our world. An expedition, she called it, a brave venture into the unknown, to finally see the water that comes so readily to our ears.
I agreed to it; how could I not? I would do anything she asked, anything. But tomorrow, I said with a wan smile, for the day has nearly quit. And now I am here, back in my kitchen, packing those needless things I yet need to find the water with her. The crickets chirrup sedately in the tall grass before the porch, calming themselves, looking only to what they know and have.
The summer has changed, by and by. The grass it taller, yes, and the trees look fuller in the sunlight, but the feeling goes far beyond that. We know, just as nature knows around us, that our time is not endless in this place. Beauty must, of necessity, leave us, just as it comes, unexpected and unexplained. And we have entered that timeless time of the year, the calm, the blinding stillness as we reach the apex of our arch.
Are you ready? she asks from the porch, her small pack firmly clutched in her hand. I am, I reply quietly, though even now I do not move.
I should not see the water, I know. I want to see it, but I know it is far better that it remains just beyond our vision. It is not that water, I want to tell her. It is not the water you seek, it is not your home, nor is it mine.
But she would not mind the difference, I think. Or if she did, I would not know it. Strange, is it not, that the one I care for most deeply, the one I know more than my own self, is still hidden from me just as the water is?
We leave, eventually, the house gradually fading beneath the rush of reeds, of grass and the frantic flutter of birds disturbed by our passage. We were not meant for this way, and we both know it, and yet still we press on, the sun finding us at last as it clears the tops of the maple trees around our world.
The water was beautiful, in the end, but through that day, I missed my friend.
The purple hues of the sunset! The briefest of moments, but so indescribably pure! Touched but briefly, by only the most caring of eyes, shared equally between us as we prepare for another timeless night in this warm, creaking house of ours. Soon, all too soon, the purity has left the air, and only the dreamy sounds of the earth, now settled and quiet, make known their existence. Yet still, we are awake. We sit together, in the small blue couch in the study. There is a blanket here; I never noticed it before. She draws it upon us, and we sit together, reading equally the separate works of our inward thoughts.
It's nearly time, she says, isn't it?
For what? I reply casually, looking not at the page before my eyes. The strains of the harp sound plaintively over the distant hills.
To leave, she says quietly, inwardly. But no! I protest. We still have plenty of time to us, no! There are weeks, still, before we must leave this world.
Talk to me, then. Talk to me as the wave talks to the wind that surrounds it. As something invisible, so known it is not known in the unknown world of rampant self-denial.
And I spoke to her, then, of the times gone by. I spoke of our home, cast deeply, now, beneath the distant sea. There is nothing, I say, that can ever bring us away from that place, not if we truly wish for it. Is that what you wish, I ask in complacency, dreamy as the summer night around us.
I wish for a poem, she says, written not in verse, but in truth. In the timeless, unalterable truth.
Then I shall write that poem, say I, and you shall write it with me. Truth, my dear, comes not from a single source. Nor does the quiet sound of the water, which you can hear even now, if you try for it. Do you try, then, with me?
I try, she whispers, I try forever.
These thoughts, they fall as the leaves do, a beauty reflecting a certain hue of the purple sunset. A tragic beauty, to be sure, for it marks the end we've so completely turned away from. The time has come, has nearly come for us. I sit upstairs, in the hot attic, surrounded by the crumbling old planks of wood and dust, disturbed only recently by my presence here. I do not know where she is.
The bags sit empty still, waiting in a screaming silence to be filled and unfilled, taking away the delicacy of our sweet denial, made of this sunny world.
The water rushes quicker, now, more quickly than it ever has before. I hear it strongly when I sit before the kitchen window in the mornings, drinking my habitual tea. It rushes upon me even now, isolated as I am in the corner of this tiny existence. Yet now I cannot see it, what I've been seeing all this time. That inward picture that was mine alone is gone, falling with the leaves outside the porch.
The grass is tall, even now, but it grows nothing. Now it gives. It gives forth our memories, interpreted in the delicate grain of nourishment it creates. That nourishment is not for us, though; it is made only for its own existence.
Where is the light? Have I all this time been sitting in the dark up here? The sun is yet in the sky; why can I not see it where it goes?
There is a mechanical bulb above me, but I do not see the switch for it. Nor do I look for it, for I fear now the technic as I do the fallen leaves.
I hear her below, but I do not know where she is. I might call down to ask, or I might go myself to see, but then I should be confronted with the beauty of the porch, a beauty now all around me, inescapable. I am full of it, ready to burst. I wait for only one final thing: the chord of the harp, the haunting, voluptuous strain of the world's ambiance. But I cannot hear it up here. It is too far from me; I cannot hear it.
She calls to me, It's time to go! And I respond in truth, I know.
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