Pax
Pax
The waters slid past, and she found she was looking at the man. His face looked comfortable, easy and there was such a feeling of familiarity and safety about him that she felt she had known him for years. He did not kneel, he did not sit, he did not stand imperiously.
“In places I have known,” he said, “they would know you for who you are.”
And who is that? she would have asked in any other place, if she had been any other than herself.
He saw the travel, the journey, the weariness in her. The white around her had darkened to red and green and brown, carrying the scent of grass, summer mornings, a child given to a shepherd when she thought herself dying, the gaze of others, and the laments of her body. She held strength in her, he saw, too, and she realized it at the very instant he did; it was as if their minds were the same, so long had they thought of each other’s existence.
And it has been a blessing. They who truly knew…his thoughts trailed off. He simply stood, and it was as if they embraced without touching, as if the years before held all the pain and weariness and love for them both to see and know each other as they were, for them to love truly.
The water cleared, beckoned onward, and the ships had disappeared, as had all land and the harshness of the sun, which had melted into the moon and became instead, a light her mother had told her about in stories, in true stories. These are not tales, but moments of my life, ones that will guide you, if you so choose it. Her mother’s voice soft, her eyes dark and strange and full. Bianca had known of other lands; they had been the lullabies before she was born; they had visited her in dreams.White sails became full with the wind. Bianca felt an ease she had never known, and the water skimmed past as if she were flying. The man’s presence was as familiar air. And she came into legends, and to dreams.
This is the gateway beyond all knowledge you have built for yourself. And she was light on cracked and bleeding feet, weightless with the air and the wind, her shift flying about her in white wings. The lines of her own palms, wearied and browned by the sun, harsh and human, seemed like the most unearthly of beauties to him, and her hair at once shimmered between coarse stubble and a dark river. The wind lifted her up, she in her human suffering, she in the joy from it, from knowing, and she laughed.
“In places I have known,” he said, “they would know you for who you are.”
And who is that? she would have asked in any other place, if she had been any other than herself.
He saw the travel, the journey, the weariness in her. The white around her had darkened to red and green and brown, carrying the scent of grass, summer mornings, a child given to a shepherd when she thought herself dying, the gaze of others, and the laments of her body. She held strength in her, he saw, too, and she realized it at the very instant he did; it was as if their minds were the same, so long had they thought of each other’s existence.
And it has been a blessing. They who truly knew…his thoughts trailed off. He simply stood, and it was as if they embraced without touching, as if the years before held all the pain and weariness and love for them both to see and know each other as they were, for them to love truly.
The water cleared, beckoned onward, and the ships had disappeared, as had all land and the harshness of the sun, which had melted into the moon and became instead, a light her mother had told her about in stories, in true stories. These are not tales, but moments of my life, ones that will guide you, if you so choose it. Her mother’s voice soft, her eyes dark and strange and full. Bianca had known of other lands; they had been the lullabies before she was born; they had visited her in dreams.White sails became full with the wind. Bianca felt an ease she had never known, and the water skimmed past as if she were flying. The man’s presence was as familiar air. And she came into legends, and to dreams.
This is the gateway beyond all knowledge you have built for yourself. And she was light on cracked and bleeding feet, weightless with the air and the wind, her shift flying about her in white wings. The lines of her own palms, wearied and browned by the sun, harsh and human, seemed like the most unearthly of beauties to him, and her hair at once shimmered between coarse stubble and a dark river. The wind lifted her up, she in her human suffering, she in the joy from it, from knowing, and she laughed.