The Field

[erastes]

During winter, that barren time when the world sleeps under a counterpane of frost and forgetfulness, I find myself able to watch the field without crying.

It's the slow time. The time when the very living heartbeat of the earth slows to an almost imperceptible pace. The season when, if you brushed away the snow and risked your death of cold to lie against the earth and put your ear to the soil, you might hear the trees snoring, the sound of their slumber reverberating through the very roots beneath where you lay. It's a healing time, when the world sleeps beneath a blanket of snow and the hurts inflicted the plough and tiller are healed, ready for a new beginning, new life.

But some hurts are more grievous for the earth to sustain and heal over one winter. Some hurts linger on, in the ground and in the memory. Some scars on the landscape never, ever heal, and yet I still hope.

I have to hope; hope is all I possess, other than two angry hands and one angry heart for the God who took you from this place, this sanctuary of peace and dragged you into a turmoil that neither of us understood, no-one understands even now. 

For I don't really know what happened to you, not before you left, or since you've been gone.  Or where you are now, if indeed you are anywhere at all.

The world was white when you left.  We walked by the river and the day was cold, but frozen into a perfection of ice and crystal, glittering under a useless sun.  In your eyes there was nothing but the reflection of the icy river and that deep melting warmness when you turned and, out of sight of the house, kissed me in a taboo-filled silence.  But even then, your mind was far away, and instead of the sound of the white river, all you could hear was the blue of the drumbeat, the black of the gunshot, the red of the battle.

The grass, hoar frozen, crackled under our feet as you touched my lips and said you would be home, home before the swallows. I believed you; Why would I not? You'd never lied to me before.  You had promised that you would not hurt me when you first persuaded me to kiss you, your stubble rough against my skin, your tongue tasting of mead and sunshine.  And you did not.  You promised that I would feel something wonderful when I let you put your hands on me, turning softness into iron.  And I did.  You swore that you would teach me of love as your hands pulled the clothes from my body and your mouth claimed me for all eternity.  And you did.

So why was my heart bursting when I watched you walk away?  Why did my tears melt the frost beneath my feet?  Why, when you disappeared into the white-out of the snow, did I feel that I had never known you, that somehow, in spite of our months together, that you had never existed, and all that was left was an empty page?  You left me here to cry, to carry on, until all that I had was the memory of your lips, you left to me to that most useless of emotions: hope.

I still hope, every time I walk past the field to the village and I hear the sound-memory of canon and of screaming horses that the earth will forgive mankind for the wrongs it has done. And I find myself crossing my fingers each time the snow falls. Make this the year, I pray to a God I've abandoned,make this the year when the snow recedes on the field and there is nothing but grass, nothing but grass and poppies.

I still hope, as I sit by the frozen river, my body shielded against the elements with what rags I could find, my mind shielded from the thought of the blue of your eyes being glazed in death by sheer will-power.  I still hope, as the snow blots the path from the river from sight, that you will come back.  That soon you will be emerging, warm and real from the shroud of white that falls every year.  Run laughing with the flakes of confetti of frozen reunion stark against your dark hair.  Your hands, icy, but warming on my flesh, your lips, blue, but turning to crimson as they claim my waiting empty mouth.  Our breath in puffs of happy steam like two desperate dragons.

In this monochrome hell I wait then, and I only stir when my limbs and marrow seem certain to freeze will I give up.  But I only give up until the next white day, for only when the world is white can I hope that you made it, and that it is some other reason that keeps you from me, and that it’s duty—or even love--and not the frigid earth of some forgotten field.

Erastes-2004

Comments

[asphodeline.livejournal.com]

Beautiful.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :)

[dcjuris.livejournal.com]

Wow. Just...wow.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Thank you, dear. That's kind of you.

[chris-smith-atr.livejournal.com]

Gorgeous.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[copperbeech.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing this.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you liked it, thank you.

[leatherdykeuk.livejournal.com]

Wow.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

thank you, dear.

[joannesopercook.livejournal.com]

Beautiful and heartwrenching.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[dubious-virtue.livejournal.com]

You've taken my breath away.

[erastes.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much!