Sruthán Naofa
I had been watching her for some time.
She lay beside the brook. The ground pressed up against her, accepting the curves of her body as if it had been shaped for this alone. She lay on her side, one arm extended, the other arm cradled against her chest, as though easing an ache that lingered there. The earth around her was soft with new grass, melting in testimony to her presence, forming a shallow impression that would remain long after she rose in a memory. On her head rested a myrtle crown with sprigs of white woven in her dark hair. Her feet were bare and her dress clung to her so tight I felt I should look away, but found it impossible to avert my eyes. She did not move. Only the slow and steady rise of her ribs betrayed her. Yet every so often, a tremor would pass through her, as though some internal music had reached a crescendo inaudible to anyone else.
The sun hung behind the trees, its light filtered through the branches in which I was perched. I was concealed by the height, yet close enough to see the pulse in her throat. I could see the way her eyelashes left delicate shadows on her cheek. I realized then what I was doing: unabashedly studying, as if assigned no other task nor wished for one. I wondered, absurdly, whether she knew she was being observed, whether she herself was holding everything still by refusing to stir. Waiting. Listening. The world seemed to contract to the span between us, the hush and then the hush again, broken only by the gurgle of water.
The brook babbled quietly, a small and patient current threading between stones. Nothing hurried. She rested, but at complete attention, as though waiting for something, an answer, perhaps, or permission. It felt as though the moment was suspended.
My heart stirred with unspoken words and tangled emotions. I felt the urge to remain hidden, perched in my sanctuary, but something compelled me toward her. I took a deep breath, summoning the courage to approach, to break the silence that lay between us.
I shifted my weight, gripping the rough bark of the tree before I began my descent. Suddenly, her eyes went vacant, her knuckles whitening. She drew her knees slightly upward, the hem of her dress tugging across her thighs, the fabric luminous against the deep blue of the sky reflected in the water. I shut my eyes for just a heartbeat, and in that instant, she disappeared into the water. I couldn’t tell if she had leapt, seeking its embrace, or if the water itself had surged forth to envelop and swallow her.
The quiet shattered. The waters swelled and the brook became a stream. And the stream was a cacophony. A rush of overlapping thoughts and unfiltered emotions collided in a stream of consciousness that spilled forth in a forceful current. The noise was pervasive, drowning out everything else— an incoherent raving.
Does it need to be said?
No.
Maybe?
Yes.
Does it need to be said by me?
Yes.
What needs to be said?
I don’t know.
Where are you?
| Unhappiness
1. Is it true?
2. Can I do anything?
3. Can I accept it?
Happiness |
1. It is true.
2. I cannot.
3. I cannot. I must.
Where am I?
Ecstasy¹
No.
“There is no we.”
No.
*it was: they are we.
But we
But we say nothing all the day and doth ye not know which soul spake?
Do we not both spake same? and defects of loneliness controls… and in lives mysteries in souls do grow
Not to be denied
Small change when we are to bodies gone
Truth.
Truth.
Too much truth.
Ecstasy broaches too much risk.
Forbidding Mourning² ?
Our two souls therefore, which are one
and twere profanation of our joys to tell the laity our love
Not a breach— an expansion
An expansion!
Curse the distance.
I will not go.
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show.
No. Close the distance.
Too esoteric.
Too much.
Need to rest.
Need to be.
Wild Geese³
Yes.
What we need is here.
It’s here.
It’s all around.
It’s you.
It’s me.
It’s everything.
No.
We need soft spring and new life. Too soon for harvest.
If I am dependent then these geese might be
desperate.
Mary?
Mary has Wild Geese⁴.
Her geese can fly home
No.
Too untethered.
Too much wanderlust.
Am I dependent?
in the right ways,
on the razor’s edge.
Strong enough to go.
Bold enough to stay.
Maybe he can choose our meditation…
No.
He doesn’t want to choose.
How do you know if you never ask?
The fatigue. The refusal.
Doesn’t he have a say?
Yes.
But opportunity implodes.
And opportunity is infinite.
Yes.
No.
Choosing is a gift.
I will choose.
He already chose.
So recall the affordance, not the sign.
What is the affordance?
Desirable.
Feasible.
Viable.
Viable.
Viable.
What do I care about viablility
We are people.
People.
People over policy.
People over prophecy. Over pride.
Over procedure
protocol politics
power
position
process
planning
performance
platforms
projection presumption
pretension
perfection passion possession
People.
Always. Always.
Always.
Oh how to love
Oh how to live
mo ghrá
never let me go
an slabhra gan deireadh
and He cannot fit within a galaxy, yet He fits within my chest, my chest is filled with His love, and in His love I will lose myself
infinity
Infinite
Infinity
Eternity!
Eternal
Love
Lord, have mercy
show us the way
open our eyes
no more wasting away
the way
the way
in Your name we pray
Amen
Then, silence.
Not the silence of absence, not a muting of sound so much as a rarefaction of being, an unburdening of the free air. The world did not resume because the world had never paused. The trees creaked softly and uttered a sigh of release. The water retreated into its bed, returning to its serene task. It was patient, as water is patient, always ready to receive.
She lay on the bank, her body slack, every muscle in her face resigned to gravity. The storm of thought that had animated her now deserted her, leaving behind a sense of spentness so complete that it seemed to be leached of escalating crisis. Exhaustion overtook her and she yielded to it as a child succumbs to sleep, both sudden and deep.
But sleep is not always escape, it is a place of restoration and also of passage. This was a sleep that honored what had been endured. Thinking did not stop, it reorganized itself, rerouted through less guarded channels. Her face, turned toward the sky, was open and defenseless. In sleep, her hand twitched, fingers closing and opening as if testing the tensile strength of things unseen. Her lips moved, forming words not meant for any living ear. As I approached, her breathing became even, in dialogue with the silence, and together they were attempting to find a new equilibrium. In that moment, I could no longer tell where she ended and I began. A soft tremor seized her, not violent, but insistent, as if the body itself was trying to adopt something the mind hadn’t the power to articulate. It was then that her head lifted.
Not far, just a tilt, a gathering of intent at the base of the skull. Her eyelashes fluttered, and for a moment her eyes opened, unfocused. She was not fully awake, but her ears were open. The living water noticed her attention and eddied and spun, forming words the way a breeze sometimes arranges itself into a whisper.
I heard it first, or rather, the words entered me not by my ears, but by some more primitive avenue: the skin, the breath, the pulse at my wrist becoming hers. I watched her features reflected in the water pooled beside us and saw my face ripple with hers until a single countenance was realized.
The words were nothing new, but the manner of their arrival was. They came not as a command, not as a shout, not as a whisper, but as a conviction, so simple and total that to resist would have been to refuse breathing itself, her breathing, my breathing, now indistinguishable as one.
Be still and know
With Love & Gratitude
¹ John Donne, The Ecstasy
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44099/the-ecstasy
² John Donne, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44131/a-valediction-forbidding-mourning
³ Wendell Berry, Wild Geese
(from Collected Poems, 1957–1982)
https://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php%3Fdate=2003%252F08%252F05.html
⁴ Mary Oliver, Wild Geese
https://allpoetry.com/poem/15374223-Wild-geese-by-Mary-J-Oliver