Love Song

Today I offer a post from the Householder’s Archives. It’s a little fiction/poetry I wrote a couple of years ago and thought, in light of my recent musings on faith, vision, and traveling into the unknown, this would be an appropriate transition piece as we prepare for Thanksgiving and Advent. Enjoy. 

It begins in the dark, as all things do. It begins in the breath before a whisper; the deep, cold space between the stars. The black bones of trees lay bare against a black sky growing grey with the first light. Winter. Below the stars Earth, frozen and dormant. There’s an intelligence there, forgotten in the hard packed crystals of ice. A waiting for something not yet remembered. A sharp intake of Breath; the groan of Earth recalling some deeper warmth.

I know you, She says.

It takes some convincing for Earth to thaw. He wavers around the idea of warmth as space slides between the ice. One day, without realizing it, Spring. A whisper turned into a laugh, a song. The remembrance of a bird, a flower, a tree.

I’m alive, He says.

They flirt, this Earth and Breath. They dance and tumble and birth new animals, new songs, new skies. Their love grows, warmed by Sun. But Sun betrays them. She shines too bright and too strong. Summer. His grasses get scorched; flowers wither and die. Breath pushes rain through Air only to choke.

You almost killed me, She says.

Earth, wondering what happened to his beloved Breath turns only to see that she has found a new love. Wind. Fall. Breath and Wind merge bringing a familiar song to Earth. The ancient chant of ruin and death.

This is what I was afraid of, He says.

Leaves fall. Everything they birthed in Spring unrecognizable now.

I have to go, She says.

The rage in Breath pushing away the last of Sun. Light and warmth fade. The hard-pack of ice returns as Earth goes dormant once again.

Why did you leave me? He asks.

Breath rides Wind over Earth, searching, searching for a way back in; getting caught on the bones in the sky. After Her exhale, the dark. The deep cold space between the stars. The breath before the whisper.

I know you, She says.