I've been working on this piece for some time now... you may have already seen bits and pieces of it here as I played with different sections. It is now complete, with a new title, and I post it here now in its entirety.
* * * * *
AwakeningI
She packed her heartache
into a battered leather valise with
scuffed-up edges and a broken lock,
and left.
Her past trailed out behind her
in long ribbons of barely acknowledged resentment
and unexpressed sorrow.
She surged into the unknown
with hardly a backward glance,
pushing her hair into place and adjusting her collar,
on the outside chance
that someone might notice
and give her a break.
II
She stood in line at the airport,
a pair of sunglasses with scratched lenses
dangling from her mouth,
while she absentmindedly checked her pockets,
wondering which one contained her passport.
The clerk glanced contemptuously at her small battered valise.
It wasn't sturdy enough to imprison the demons of her past,
and appeared far too humble to hold
the seeds of a new start.
She hefted the worn suitcase onto the conveyor belt,
then gathered up the incessant unending threads of guilt and unfulfilled obligations.
She impatiently stuffed the lot of them into her purse in a tangled mess.
"Snakes' honeymoon," she whispered,
not quite only to herself,
with a lopsided almost smile.
She narrowly dodged the barbed claws,
soaked overnight in sanctimonious retribution,
and said, "Anywhere. It doesn't matter."
The signature on the back of her credit card
was faded almost beyond recognition.
III
And she flew away on borrowed wings.
Every time she checked
(trying to be as unobtrusive as possible),
the ribbons of self-reproach had again become entangled,
tripping up her feet and twisting amongst her heartstrings.
Each time, she quickly snatched up the errant threads,
tore them from their new moorings,
and buried them under future details.
From her satchel, she retrieved a book
with an unadorned cover of soft brown leather
and a delicate ribbon of red silk to mark her page.
She reached into her pocket for the weighted fountain pen
that perfectly fit her grasp.
She opened to the first page
and began to write.
For a day and a night and yet another day
the words poured from her pen,
like drops of blood from her fingertips.
IV
She walked through the mysterious city,
carrying her preoccupations in a patchwork-quilted bag
tossed carelessly over her left shoulder.
She marvelled at the magnificence all around her,
but she no longer knew who she was.
Sometimes she crumbled
under the weight of the shattered voices
that continually cast out more lengths of entangling ribbons...
to ensnare her, to bind her, to drag her back
to a place that no longer existed.
And as she wandered the strange streets of her new life,
drifting aimlessly amongst the steel and glass towers of the daring,
she paused to pick up pieces of her lost self.
Some were familiar and recognizable,
others exotic and extraordinary.
At the end of the day,
tucked into her tiny room,
surrounded by the seeds of her newness,
she puzzled over how it all went together.
And even when the light grew dim
and none of the pieces seemed to fit,
she continued to collect and save them,
sorting them carefully into boxes labelled,
"Strength"...."Confidence"...."Courage"
And she used the trailing ribbons
to tie the boxes shut.
V
She wrote about the boy who loved hard work....
who travelled far, long before he was grown,
and how he found his future
in a distant place.
She wrote about the man who loved her so....
about how he slipped away into the darkness one day,
leaving a swirl of sparkling stardust
that surrounds and protects her
still and always.
She wrote about the boy who lost himself
in a dense fog of fear and confusion,
about how his world became small,
about how his walls collapsed inward
with a mighty reverberating crash.
She wrote about the lessons learned....
lessons of grief and fragility and recovery,
lessons of compassion and understanding and justice,
lessons of humility and determination and resilience.
She wrote about the two who walked by her side.
And she wrote about the little girl
who shone a brightness
upon them all.
Her pen danced an intricate path....
singing out the stories of how she came to be here....now....
and when the voice of her pen fell silent,
she quietly marked her place with the red ribbon,
gathered up all the tangled threads
(....thousands of miles of them....)
and wrapped them tightly around the book.
VI
Once upon a time
she loved again.
He came to her in the night
with music and dreams....tenderness and devotion....
He dripped starshine into the palm of her hand.
He placed sparkling moonbeams in her hair.
He smiled at the colour of her laughter.
And as the darkly brilliant sky unfolded into morning,
he brought her overflowing armfuls of violets and daisies
that filled her with the scent of enchantment.
He guided her gently through the maze
and helped her to untangle the twisted ribbons.
She gave him words of love
and that was enough.
"Come," she whispered.
And one sultry and sensuous night,
on a quietly deserted stretch of sand,
they listened to the surf and swayed in the moonlight.
The barriers dissolved and melted
into the salt sea between
and the words came easy.
In the end,
the alternating crests and troughs of their passion
became too much to bear.
The ocean flowed again
into the emptiness between
and the waves overtook them.
Glittering streams of starshine connect them yet....
a quietly shimmering affection, freely offered,
that stretches across the darkly wide seas
between.
VII
From her satchel, she retrieves a book.
She sets aside her sunglasses,
and brushes the palm of her hand
across the unadorned cover of soft brown leather,
pausing briefly at the bottom right-hand corner
to note the unassuming number "2"
etched there in gold foil.
She reaches into her pocket
for the weighted fountain pen that fits her grasp perfectly.
As she opens the book to the first page,
a flurry of butterflies escapes the confines of her gentle memories.
She smiles quietly and watches as they flutter away
in an iridescent joyfulness of multicoloured wings.
And, using the same delicate ribbon of red silk to mark her page,
she continues to write.
DLD/26JUL07
Listening to: When You Say You Love Me (Josh Groban).
