I'm serene.
She is -- over there, now over there as I turn the corner. Though I'm lost in this maze, the sense of her shows me the way. The yews close in on me. My fear of tight places constricts my breath. I could be trapped, forever. Do I want to face this fear to find her? The rake of the yew branches leave green smears on my arms, Kelley green, forest green, evergreen, fresh oils not yet dry. I am approaching her. Time is of no consequence, yet at some passage of unremembered forever the yews part for me. Swept before me on the canvas of everything, is the garden, stretching to the horizon and beyond to everywhere in a hundred thousand brush strokes -- her strokes. This is her garden, the Garden of Her. Vibrancy is redefined by her application of her chosen palette she 0has chosen. Texture, through drawn through my eyes, is felt with my fingertips, though I have touched nothing. She has touched me. I feel the grace of her brush movements. Eyes closed, I see her wood nymph, elfin movements as she moved about the garden applying the colors, shadows, sowing the seeds brush stroke by brush stroke. |
She is there -- see her -- over there, bent to one particular daisy in careful, purposeful, perfect rendering of what God has previously created. The quintessence of her application, centimeter by centimeter with the smallest of brushes, is to match and celebrate that deified perfection. She is the only thing in the garden real with the diminished tint of reality. Everything else is the ultra-reality of Chagall. Yet she is the most effervescent object in the scene. She sees me. She rises, smile half sad, half glad. Wearing only bib overalls, she moves onto the path, each verdant blade a meticulous stroke of a brush. The path draws a line from her to me, but she will not come to me. Her overalls are all that cover her. I can't imagine the course fabric against her fair skin, though I yearn to be that cut of denim. Her shoulders are bare. My hands remember the feel of her blades against their palms, pressing her to me. Yet, the bib hides her breasts. I cannot see their pristine pale skin perfect and perfectly tipped with orchid salmon pink. What my eyes cannot sense my touch can remember. Once again I cup her soft pliability. |
I find her lips with my eyes. Their memory is upon my own, imbuing her energy through me as they once did, filling me with contentment, a happiness beyond anything induced by any drug or other woman. She won't come to me. I step to her, smearing my footprint in the grass of her forever work-in-progress, her garden. I have left a mark in the careful brush strokes of the world she creates around herself.
I reach to one of the colitas arching over me, gently pinching a petal, coming away with a buttery smear of paint, tipping my thumb and forefinger. If I will be forced to leave, I will take away something of her world with me. I will let the paint dry and leave it until I absolutely must wash it away. |
She shakes her head. Her eyes tell me You can't come in. It's my garden, not yours.
My understanding molds a return smile across my face, but my eyes plead. Perhaps you could at least make a place for me to wait.
She nods to a niche along the yews that separate her garden from the maze that has been my world during the recent forever. Inside the niche is a gazebo. She has left a place for me, a small place, but a place nevertheless. It is a beautiful in its pristine clean whiteness, yet its lines, hue and form hold the harshness of reality. I turn to where she stood, but she is gone.
I climb the steps of the gazebo, taking a seat in the wicker chair with the flowered cushion. On the wicker table beside me is a shell, pastel more saturated than anything the sea can leave on a shore. When I pick it up, her voice comes to me. Time once again becomes inconsequential….
…until she returns.
She is the hue of reality, but her dress, a flowered sundress holds the saturation and tint of oil on canvas. Still she is more brilliant than her dress. She moves with lithe grace, pristine legs and shoulders exposed from the drape of the dress. I am still, yet I am moved. I am filled. She comes to me, but only half the way. An easel I hadn't noticed, sits at the crossing of two paths. She sits before it and takes up her brush. I can only watch, I have not been bidden entrance into the Garden.
A quill and parchment leaves form on the table beside the shell. I take up the quill and set to my own artistic endeavor, absorbing the warm breeze of creativity that blows across the garden from her. She is my muse and this is my expression. Periodically, I look up at her, bent close to her canvas, surely aware of me, but seemingly not. Then in the inconsequence of time, she looks over her shoulder, at me and smiles. It's a smile I've seen before. It bids me beckon.
I go to her. As she stands, the buttons of her dress have come undone, neck to hem, but the dress remains closed, teasing. Bending, I press my lips to hers, holding contact until the sanguine becomes sublime. I cradle her, lifting her, taking her seat, settling her on my lap, feeling for all the world as if the Universe had once again found its design. Her smiling eyes hold the honesty of I will have to return to my painting soon. Still, I am in the garden of Her, drinking in her fragrance, taking in her beauty, absorbing her essence through embrace and it will sustain me for, for…. For the moment, she is with me -- until I wake. Perhaps longer.
Perhaps.
My understanding molds a return smile across my face, but my eyes plead. Perhaps you could at least make a place for me to wait.
She nods to a niche along the yews that separate her garden from the maze that has been my world during the recent forever. Inside the niche is a gazebo. She has left a place for me, a small place, but a place nevertheless. It is a beautiful in its pristine clean whiteness, yet its lines, hue and form hold the harshness of reality. I turn to where she stood, but she is gone.
I climb the steps of the gazebo, taking a seat in the wicker chair with the flowered cushion. On the wicker table beside me is a shell, pastel more saturated than anything the sea can leave on a shore. When I pick it up, her voice comes to me. Time once again becomes inconsequential….
…until she returns.
She is the hue of reality, but her dress, a flowered sundress holds the saturation and tint of oil on canvas. Still she is more brilliant than her dress. She moves with lithe grace, pristine legs and shoulders exposed from the drape of the dress. I am still, yet I am moved. I am filled. She comes to me, but only half the way. An easel I hadn't noticed, sits at the crossing of two paths. She sits before it and takes up her brush. I can only watch, I have not been bidden entrance into the Garden.
A quill and parchment leaves form on the table beside the shell. I take up the quill and set to my own artistic endeavor, absorbing the warm breeze of creativity that blows across the garden from her. She is my muse and this is my expression. Periodically, I look up at her, bent close to her canvas, surely aware of me, but seemingly not. Then in the inconsequence of time, she looks over her shoulder, at me and smiles. It's a smile I've seen before. It bids me beckon.
I go to her. As she stands, the buttons of her dress have come undone, neck to hem, but the dress remains closed, teasing. Bending, I press my lips to hers, holding contact until the sanguine becomes sublime. I cradle her, lifting her, taking her seat, settling her on my lap, feeling for all the world as if the Universe had once again found its design. Her smiling eyes hold the honesty of I will have to return to my painting soon. Still, I am in the garden of Her, drinking in her fragrance, taking in her beauty, absorbing her essence through embrace and it will sustain me for, for…. For the moment, she is with me -- until I wake. Perhaps longer.
Perhaps.