Only The Memories Remain

The strength of this love,

like a mid-west thunderstorm

building out on the plains

and working its way east,

dark, forbidding and filled with power, 

washed over me.

It was a fate that could not be avoided,

and therefore I embraced it.

I could feel it, could taste it like rain,

and smell it like electricity in the air.

There is no sense to it.

So, I hide deep inside a wall of denial,

a darkness of mind and silence of thought. 

I seek a way to accept what she has done,

but my heart, where such things reveal themselves,

like rainbows after thunderstorms, can never forget.

Her words still linger in small echoes.

Her presence is still warm against my heart.

Time we didn’t have. 

Time slips away like night toward day—

a certainty of loss that cannot be reversed.

Only the memories remain.

It was a summer day, filled with sunshine

and the smell of grass and wildflowers.

The hardwoods were deep and shadowed,

but streaked with long fingers of bright sunlight.

A thin lacework of clouds drifted across the blue sky.

A slight breeze wafted off the river

that flowed with sluggish indifference.

Sunlight sparkled off the water in brilliant diamond bursts.

The river became a silver-tipped satin sheet.

The tan of her skin glowed like the surface of water

caught in a sunrise. Her body curved and flowed

like the river with grace and supple ease.

The day wore on and twilight deepened.

I watched the sunset wash lavender and gold

across her skin, as if making a vain attempt

to paint her in a better light, but the sun soon disappeared

below the horizon, leaving only its crimson wake

to light the world, and leave the daylight,

hazy and dim with twilight’s slow decent. 

Night descended in a deep soft blackness.

The sky was awash in stars,

but thick with summer heat, 

making the air feel compressed

and heavy beneath the pinpricked sky.

Color faded from her skin.

Night’s shadows closed about us

as the moon came up and lent its radiance

to the river in a dazzling silver sweep.

It was like a memory held forth all in its own,

shimmering like quicksilver in the starlight,

whispering to me in seductive tones

and making promises it could not keep

Overhead, the sky was crosshatched by limbs.

Their dappled shadows were cast earthward

in a tangled net by the bright moonlight,

directly over the trees; a phosphorus presence

in the immensity of the sky’s vast sweep. 

Stars sprinkled the indigo firmament like grains

of brilliant white sand scattered on black velvet,

making it light enough to make out the shape of the trees

and the soft movement of leaves and branches

in the slow evening wind.

The night was as soft as velvet.

It cradled us in its arms, easing us towards sleep.

She became a small, faint whiteness

within the dark, as ethereal as gossamer

standing out against the hardwoods;

a dark and silent silhouette

against the starry backdrop of the southern horizon.

And then, the memory fades.

My mind is borne to other places and times

on the wings of thought,

where the night, still, empty-feeling

and cloud silent, eases me trough the gloom,

past the shadows pooling in narrow corners.

Yet, her voice still whispers to me

in the sound of the wind,

and the feel of what I cannot see—

even in my dreams—still remains.