Summerbaby - The World in Miniature

by Leila
http://writingvicariously.blogspot.com/

Summerbaby

I was born two seasons before him, and already I saw the river between us. Each night in my sleep, I saw the cold, harsh disparity, and his unwillingness to break from it. Perhaps this is the way. Perhaps this is fate.


I'm a summer baby. I know only laughter and endless sun. I know only the scent of lemongrass and the wavering hum of a wayward lark. Lilacs are blessed every morning, and crickets sing to the twilight's glare. The world is bright for a summer baby, and love is always near. I knew happiness this way. I knew life this way.

From the horizon, I saw the distant winter. The charcoal clouds loomed above the summer grass, and I thought that death has come. Life owes its lease to the winter storm.

That's how I knew him, my winter lover. He is afraid and gentle, but coarse and rugged. His eyes are pale, sharp, and all-seeing. He knows only of withered pine and the echoes of a wolf's ravenous howl. The moon is his friend, and he is blessed nightly by its pallid shade. His skies are wisps of faded gray, void of my iridescent summer days. I knew him as cold and perfect, unchanging in his ways.

Now there is a river between us. Each night at dawn, I beckon to him, hands outstretched against the emerald light of the vanishing stars. "Join me!" I say. "Love me!" I beg.

My poor lover, born from a tomb he knows only death. His father is a ghost, and his mother the desolate Earth of yesteryear. He could not accept my warmth or my radiant sunlight. To him, gold is harrowing, blinding. I loved him still, the unwavering maid.

"When we will be together?" I say. "There is a river between us, and I cannot wade its unforgiving torrents."

He smiles at me, his gaze a cold embrace sweeping the midnight breeze. "When snow melts, it surges through mountains and valleys. It thunders like a raging storm, digging through the soft Earth, and waking it from tempestuous slumber. This river will travel far and wide, and it won't be long before we reach the calm before the storm. When winter fades and summer calms, when autumn breaks paltry alms; and seeds have sprouted, budding forth. I shall come for you, my lady, when Spring has come."

And I waited. I waited. The snow has melted, and I drowned in its torrential tears, down the mountains to a valley of waves rushing to the crashing sea. There in the midst of a sapphire ocean, I have come to thee.