I'm still young and vital. Blood fires from the piston of my heart. Muscles rise, taut like bowstrings.
But she walks in, a whisper of a shadow of my former future life, the possible woman I might have seen. She's like an empty hourglass when the last time I saw her the first grains began to flow. She's like seeing the fully-laden apple tree though when I turned around, she had just blossomed. She's like a woman I used to love, but I look up and here she is, twenty years and two children later, acting like a mother in the firy autumn of her life, made more beautiful by the knowledge of birth, fear, and love.
I'm still in the power and crush of my youth, the spring and the fertility of a young bull who snorts at death and charges. I can have and want anything that I see, but I can't want her. Her eyes bore into me and bleach my bones in the half-light of her waning harvest moon.
Yet--I can't help thinking that I'd have her if I could.
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"Acting like a mother in the firy autumn of her life, made more beautiful by the knowledge of birth, fear, and love."
ReplyDeleteI like the idea that experience is more beautiful than innocence, although I think the tension of the dichotomy has value, also.
This reminds me of someone. It also reminds me of those people in films like *13 going on 30.* I think, really, it ends up being about trust.
This comment makes no sense, but I don't have the chutzpah to do another. In the end, it's "well done" (as though it wouldn't be--I mean, honestly), and congratulations to you for being good at something meaningful.
Thanks. Blake would be proud, wouldn't he?
ReplyDeleteThough I don't understand how it's about trust.
You know, I can't tell. Part of me thinks he'd be in a rage because competition (?), but part of me thinks he would appreciate it and, as you say, be proud.
ReplyDeleteNo, I don't suppose you would; I didn't make that part clear at all (like any of it was clear, really). Let me see whether I can explain it.
This lady is "the possible woman." She may or may not exist, and wanting her doesn't seem to be wanting HER her so much as wanting someone like her. But of course, she is further along in her development; she is autumn when you are late spring, or maybe early summer. So she isn't YOUR autumn, but what guarantee do you have that the women who are spring or summer (like you) will become like her someday? You have none except that someone who cares about you is in control and can make both you and the she who is yours like her.
Yeah, see, this is why I probably shouldn't have tried to explain it.
It makes sense. Trust in God and stuff will look better.
ReplyDeleteThat wasn't so difficult.
ReplyDeleteYou should have just said that in the first place. :-P