Opalescent honey drip mystery

remembering

The creamy matte mug, vertical ridges running its circumference, a half-moon rim of cinnamon along the edge I sip from. A cinnamon-coffee yin yang floating atop bitter rich liquid.

Everything else is greyish; clouds envelop the sky dispersing light in the way that casts no shadow. Dew drops speckle the bare arms of the Japanese maple. A flurry of sound emerges 15 feet above my forehead. (Or is it coming from my forehead?) A hundred-ish smallish greyish birds flock into the ornamental pear tree, nestle themselves onto branches, shuffle around a bit, settle for several seconds, then fly off in one rustling, sweeping movement. Birds I cannot see sing from every angle; the avian symphony.

You didn’t understand the wonder of birds — or wonder, period. The dark soil of being, fertile, always changing beneath what you can see.

Peering from beneath a pile of browned leaves, the knobby skin of a gourd laid in the garden months ago.

Meanwhile, the birds —small ones, large ones, in betweens — fly and sing, move from treetops to eaves, streak through the grey sky pointing and curving toward their temporary destinations, squawking a bit. A car motor gurgles at the far edge of the cul de sac, rumbles up the street, fades until only birdsong remains.

Chilled fingers on black metal spill red ink from fingers adorned with red polish. Fingers that reach for the last few sips of cinnamon yin yang coffee — cool now, flavors more evident.

You showed me your best performance, but couldn’t step out of it. Who is pulling your strings? Perhaps the same thing the birds harmonize with, in dissonance. You never knew the way a heart is a ripe fig, still warm from the tree, bursting with one million mysteries, yours for the eating.

To remind myself, I return to the seat where I first felt Him. It wasn’t “him,” but he was a conduit. Of the river; the opalescent, honey drip mystery (of me, of She). I quivered from the first stanza we shared, then poured poems for months — a book’s worth, at least. Our spacing and timing was… well, as much as we wanted, we couldn’t be together.

So I thought (trouble, this thinking stuff), maybe you became him.

Now I know better.

Now I know an impostor when I feel that dull, fragile temperament who does not accept that sensitivity is strength and not a problem to be dealt with.

Now I know the impostor is afraid of his shadow; he will spin himself into a story that denigrates every bit of magic that suggests a power greater than his performance.

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