Sky Watching
An act of departure as a means to remain
The light lies somewhere between silver and gold as dusk-clouds comb through the softening blue sky and a flaxen sun falls down towards the hard outline of the land. Daylight waves farewell to birds and to clouds; and to the sensual, deepening fire of the trees.
A wind blowing high and hard patiently moves the sky along toward the west; a steady breath from heaven that stretches clouds from left to right, delicately fastening and unfastening them, just as hands would white cotton blouses.
Buttoned and unbuttoned, the blouse first dresses the body and is then peeled away, losing its structure and falling to the floor in folds of softness and quiet intimacy. I watch as the wind works on the clouds like so.
Slowly first, and then rapidly, the sky begins to dim, losing its lustre and becoming the colour of a cold breath of air—poof! Yours freezes momentarily as the clouds continue to move in grey, white, grey, white suspension. The season shifts the landscape. The landscape shifts toward night.
The trees grow darker, and I become conscious of my desire to disappear disappearing. The sky pulls me into itself; pulls itself across the world. We are both contained and released beneath its shifting and evolving expanse.
When I watch the sky in this way, I no longer wish to disappear. The pain of the world takes its leave, and a doorway to something gentler and more expansive opens itself quietly within my chest.
I look up and the sky saves me. I am drawn into fading blue, hitching ride after ride upon wing after feathered wing. I am aerial and free, lifted up and out of something that is breaking apart.
I look up and everything that feels impossible becomes as ephemeral as the forming and reforming clouds. I look up and the sky saves me. Somehow it becomes possible to remain here, precisely because it becomes possible to depart.
Picture this: you are the kite, and the child lets go of the reel.
Cut loose, you find the height and leave your body behind, so that something formless within you is finally free to rest awhile in a cradle formed by clouds.
When you return to earth you are lighter somehow, and infinitely more gracious. Somehow, you no longer wish to disappear.
Your beautiful words remind me of this song by Hoagy Carmichael.
Stardust
And now the purple dusk of twilight time
Steals across the meadows of my heart
High up in the sky the little stars climb
Always reminding me that we're apart
You wandered down the lane and far away
Leaving me a song that will not die
Love is now the stardust of yesterday
The music of the years gone by
Sometimes I wonder how I spend
The lonely night
Dreaming of a song
The melody haunts my reverie
And I am once again with you
When our love was new
And each kiss an inspiration
But that was long ago
And now my consolation
Is in the stardust of a song
Besides the garden wall
When stars are bright
You are in my arms
The nightingale tells his fairytale
Of paradise where roses grew
Though I dream in vain
In my heart it will remain
My stardust melody
A memory of love's refrain