She knelt by the pool, motionless, letting a hand trail slowly through the water. The lilypads drifted by, white flowers dispersed by her gentle swirling hand. She was at one with them, a lost white flower, with lilypad eyes. Her lips were as moist as the light blue water in which the lilies sat. Lifting her head she could observe water fowl moving on their own sea. A swan moved the plants majestically in its wake. The occasional ripple in the water revealing the frantic paddling that underlay their appearent serenity. Sometimes she felt that like the swan, the ducks and the moor hens she was paddling frantically to get nowhere.
She raised her head away from that frustrating thought. Her eyes were fixed on the distant horizon, looking up at the blue skies, being slowly covered by puffy grey cloud as the weather slowly changed. Everything changed she thought. Even he had changed and yet she knew he was still there waiting for her, ready to do the right thing, the gentlemanly thing. He was so different and so unique in his gentleness, yet sometimes she wished that he would be just like the others, just like the brutes of her past. Then her head would not get crowded with these feelings and she would not have to walk away from him to create the space that he needed. She withdrew her hand wet and dripping from the waters and looked down at her wet fingers, absorbed and pensive.
He stood in the shade of the tree, one arm raised, clinging onto the thick branches looking across the grass at her bending form, wondering what had brought her here again to his pool in the park. He gazed at the soft curve of her exposed thigh, wondering what it would be like to touch and to feel the delicate fabric and to touch her warm flesh again. She had run from him again and he just did not understand it. It was not as if he did not give her the space that she said he needed. He was always thinking of her he felt. He heard the oppressive crack of distant thunder and gazed up into the sky, distracted from her presence by the gathering storm, watching lightning fork across the sky in the distance. She loved storms he knew and they would be in this stand off forever he was certain.
The first drops of rain began to patter down, splashing into the pool, spattering her cheek and melding with the tears that he could not have noticed from the distance. She looked up, grateful to the elements for erasing her worries and drowning her fears in the steady waters now trickling down her cheek. Her dress was thin and she realized that she would soon be soaked by the slow building deluge. The stone surround to the pool, turned rapidly from a dry sunparched warmth to an adjunct of the pools moisture itself. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, smelling the refreshing purity of moisture on dried earth.
The grass was wet through now and he could feel an uncomfortable dripping down the back of his neck. Yet he did not move. He was too absorbed in the water dripping through her hair and down her elegant neck. The sight of her absorbing the water as permeably as the earth, the grass and the stones around her intrigued him. He remained there, fascinated by the sight of her at one with her surroundings. His inability to move was exarcerbated by his need to see her turn and make the headlong rush for the park shelter that he knew she would.
He crouched in the downpour, huddling in the dripping leaves , focused on her stillness as he waited. He knew that she would rise suddenly. There would be an explosive yelp and a rush towards him like the over excited child, he knew so well. He wanted to be there for her as she rushed laughing and yelling across the slippery grass to shelter. He wanted to be the one to gallantly take off his jacket and drape it around her shoulders. Holding her would stop her from slipping as they looked into one another's eyes, their mutual delight refreshed again. He wanted to be the one who would cup her chin and hold her face up to his in the halflight, waiting for the storm to abate, tasting her lips as he held her close to him, a fragrant lily in his arm.
And she knew that he was waiting there behind her, crouched in the shadows. Without even turning towards him, she knew that he wanted to settle on her, to feel her yielding to his touch, to have her surrender all her senses into his protection. and what would he offer - a damp jacket to keep her warm? Warm breath on her lips that he would expect her to yield up to him. There again, perhaps with his patience and his regard for her, he deserved that. She could paddle over to him frantically like those swans, elegant and serene on the surface as she arched her neck to kiss his cheek. Standing up on tip-toe she could blink artfully and bloom wetly like the flowers on their pads in the pool. She was reassured again. She felt certain now that, although he had taken her to him, like the precious flowers of the pond, like those pale lilies she could float free whenever she wanted.
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Sometimes you can see through a glass darkly to a warped reality, forever through to your own distorted view. Turning at the mountain pass, you can see waves of heat rising from the desert floor, behind you before looking up to the view of the mountains behind the dreamworld.
You might ask yourself if there is snow on the peaks or gathering in the tops of the tree. The answer to your unspoken question echoes through the passes and down into the green valleys below - an avalanche of thoughts, feelings and considerations, around the rich snowy source of all your dreams. Standing surrounded by shrubs and trees galore, a better place could not be found, from deep purple heather in the uplands, to mossy grasses in the pastures surrounding a chateau itself.
There is a deep mist in the morning and warm afternoons to follow. These mists make it look as if the very stones of the chateau are themselves floating on the pale swathes at dawn. Later the images will flicker in the heat of the late afternoon sun, mirage like, as if willing this obelisk to mutual pleasure and delight itself to disappear.
She stands there silent, almost overawed, wishing in her heart the same fate for herself only to find it cannot happen. Her consciousness wavers on the crest of a hill like the trees in the breeze. She gazes down on the meadows in the shadows of the castle -- a hinterland of inspiration.
In his eyes, she seems to fade into a flight of fancy, like a swift surfing the calm waters of the river, flowing gently down to the busy port at Ilmarel. There she perches, on a quayside bollard, watching ships bouncing gently against the dock. She looks up at the wooden shutters on the upper deck ports, opened and regaling to the sounds of coarse laughter pouring from them.
The desires that shape these sea faring men's lives, have always shaped them with an almost rigid constancy. They know in their frustration, that the mindgames they play define their own inability to understand and to radiate beyond their present real horizons. Yes, they can wait for ships to lurch into the harbour, but these vessels only forestall ill winds if they bring home more than can ever be given away. She recollects that he and she both trade on a flurry of words, a breeze of intuition, even as distant voyagers trade on the exotic west winds. They are all touched by a hint of fear of the unknown and the unknowing. Is it really possible for him to stand just once to see the real colours in the rainbow of her desires?
A few words and the reality seems captured, she murmurs to herself, feeling drawn to her lover, closer and closer. Her amazement grows each time they cross one another's paths, among the thick coiled ropes and hessian sacking scattered around the quayside floor, obscuring the dark cobbles. They know the familiar perils by now of the dockside taverns and they will never be trapped in the fiery winds of a burning warehouse fire. They are more likely to be found watching, arms wrapped around one another, smoldering in the ruins of their elaborate conjurings, the ashes of their overheated discussions. They seem so certain in their knowledge that a heated word can shatter a person's heart; but equally aware that, in a different vein, such warm sentiments can bring joy to the receiver.
Even the most vapid sentiment can soothe of tension in an unkind and lonely world. The sensitivity and wisdom of whispered words of endearment float on the bobbing foam of the trapped waters by the quay. The wharfs are a forgiving shelter from the storm but the asylum seeker can never forget the shared passion for thoughts and emotions that led them to that precise point. There were learned tomes held in gnarled hands that, when exchanged for the wheelhouse and the open sea might have led them to forge new pathways in the future of both their stimulated imaginations.
Suddenly, she remembers her ticket and begins a desperate search of her pockets, digging in purse and bag and anywhere else knowing that she must find it soon or her dream will be gone without her. She daren't lose this chance for regret will set in for the days and nights of an eternity. And in that eternity the past ends and the future begins.
She searches in vain, praying that the dreamed of deeds that resulted in this present, will not make her retread her footsteps tomorrow, back into loneliness. This loneliness will, ironically and inevitably, be shared, as, her lover, with fantasy shore leave over, launches into territories uncharted. Their journey together into balmy seas and fresh horizons has been postponed. The separate course that he now embarks on will be punctuated by the recollection of watching the distant port that was once called home fade into the evening darkness.
She runs helplessly alongside the departing vessel as far as she can, trying to pinpoint her lover from the harbour pier. Waving frantically, her desire reaches out to her lover. Carelessly, she lets her bag fall open, and forgotten papers, knick knacks and the stub of a buried, but now useless ticket are all cast into dark oleaginous waters. The slick surface of the waves engulf her dreams remorselessly, even as the day is devoured by oncoming night.
She looks up tearfully now, realising that the white sail turning gray in the distance, lit by the piercing beam of the lighthouse is the only residual thread of hope to cling to. Hope fades remorselessly into the distance, even as she clings to the flotsam and jetsam of their encounter, swamped by the rising surf of the oncoming storm.
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