Promise
Sonata
Ben
Watson
And
then there are times when he doesn't know what to say. There would
be something to articulate, surely, but he didn't have the slightest
clue what sort of medium the clarification, the approximation
(oh, how it slipped each time he tried), the best method that
the unsettling new experience should be channeled through. So
the one of words - the most familiar medium - would do for now,
indeed, practically must do. But this was of a creeping, seeping
variety, and he began to feel more and more sure that there wasn't
really anything to say. Still, this is what he wrote her.
The
thickest of the underbrush was behind them now. And yet there
was desperation in the hand that held firmly to his, leading her
over this narrow stream, then that; pockmarks of time: determined
and ancient yet still quite young, this erosion. The process is
considered up front in a brief and fleeting moment before a pudgy
robin squeaks its upturned half-spiral to another robin high on
a branch of one of the numerous mighty oaks. She follows his lead
back onto the dirt path.
It's
not as humid as I would have guessed; he collects the thought
in his eyes while tilting a sallow head upward, catching the narrowest
beams of light slipping down in prismic golden shafts to their
dusty forest floor. Still he itches.
We
may even stumble on a grail out here in this wilderness. He
sent the thought her way as she was looking down from noticing
herself the scattered beams led in by the densely-shading foliage
ceiling looming at rest above them, he still holding her fingers
lightly but surely, and she steps over that meager straw bundle
of thorns that bisect the trodden path forged by those cattle
that had spent their years grazing among these woods. A run of
her silk white dress tears, hanging on a bristle in the brush
and she tightens his grip with her thumb. Eyes fetter between
these four: concentration, distress, blankness, and trust. Trust
leaps again and again to the worriless apex, each instance his
strong hand loosens a bit, allowing hers to do its part in their
promise of dampened feathers.
Now
the final incline through the woods. This is it. She's
taking the message from his eyes and catches him nearly bite the
side of his bottom lip. And turning his head back toward the top
of the clear narrower path, he stores that picture of her cracking
smile from a moment ago. Already the open field of sunlight is
visible in the distance, that other side of the incline's summit.
Their hands slide together, woven finger to finger with him pulling
her up closer to his shoulder, then his breast. And still. No
one speaks save the sparrows and warblers, robins and the wind
teasing at a trembling, opening canopy.
He
leads her with his foot and they step slow and down into the waters,
its surface warm by the sun. Her eyes go large and she keeps on,
and he keeps on, one foot in front of the other, letting out their
last breath of air at the moment when the two at last reach the
center of the pond, fully submerged. Their hands slip and mingle
and come together once more when she points up with her foggy
eyes, feeling no chill, guiding his eyes to that warm broad expanse
above through the clear summer skies that warm the only pond in
the forest. It's often so much I bubble over, she pleaded to him
more than once before in their language free of words. He sends
the plea to her now with a bubble slipping from his lips and up
the waters green as an olive while amber strands sway in the spanse,
the aqua space of their watery grave as airfree as it is filled
with promise. And so it was that in this act they sealed their
promise, these marooned islanders who on this day agreed they
together would assemble the feathers needed to carry them away
at last: on dampened wings in noonday sun.
***
Ben
Watson was born and raised in Kentucky and currently resides
in Portland, Oregon.
©
Ben Watson