Memoir 14

Pagans call it Beltane;

The start of summer, the crest of spring.

Leaves speckle green

like an artist’s sponge painting.

Fluorescent purple petals scatter

along the edge of the gravel road.

A few red-breasted birds follow,

keeping pace as we move forward.

Your knee has been hurting,

work has been stressful,

I’m starting a new job within a week or two.

I hope things start going better for us.

If we could retire together,

live simply, feel gratitude--

I hope one day it will be work it,

and give us the time we need

to write poetry,

take snapshots,

travel and send postcards.

Maybe we’ll wake at the crack of dawn,

you starting coffee in the camaper,

listening to birds and echoing their song

until they answer back.

Maybe I’ll have a fw more years

of cooking outdoor meals under my belt,

and I’ll join you to start breakfast

letting the sounds settle into me,

nature’s moods resonating.

We’ll come together when life asks it of us,

and move alone when we need to-

not pushing too hard,

until the other returns.

Jay and I were stargazing last night when, all

at once, a white flash split open the sky.

It appeared suddenly at the center, like a

heartbeat skipping in the dark, then vanished

just as quickly. You said something I couldn’t

quite catch before two more flashes followed

--brief, bright, and electric against the

deepening blue, like distant stars winking in a secret language we almost understood.

We turned to each other at the same time,

eyes wide and you laughed softly, saying

we might have just seen UFOs. The word hung

between us, playful and possible. My mind

drifted back to the story you once told me

how the sky lit up with the letters of your

name, as if the universe itself had called out to you.

“Well, this is the first time we’ve seen one together.” You said.

Below us, the fire crackled and popped, its

flames curling and flicking like the tongue of a serpent tasting the night air.. The warmth

reached just beneath my gaze, grounding us

as everything above felt vast and unknowable.

Then, slowly, our conversation fell away again,

not from lack, but from fullness.

We sat in the quiet, letting the meadow hold

us. Dandelions caught the last night at the canyon’s edge, glowing softly like

scattered embers in the grass. As the sun slipped away,

moments, our laughter-- gathering them gently

before letting them drift back into words.

And somewhere above us, the sky remained open, endless, and listening.

And then, as we were leaving in the car,

darkness drinking up the view behind us, you

explained that the lights on a plane are a form of communication-- that out there, even in the

open sky, nothing travels without speaking.

You told me I’d find the same language on the water, how the lights on a boat flicker like

a kind of morse code, guiding one another

home as people on land answer back

with their own quiet signals.

I held that thought turning it over between the sky and the sea- how traveling through space

must feel like drifting between scattered constellations of meaning, while crossing

the ocean is like slipping through a vast, breathing unknown, both paths lit by fragile

pulses of intention.

And it made me realize: finding my way with you feels like that too-- like being guided through darkness by something small but certain, like a distant light blinking just for me,

steady as a heartbeat, soft as a whisper,

constant as the tide pulling me safely to shore.

The night folded itself around us softly when we came home from the canyon, like it knew we had carried something sacred back with us. It was just after nine- the air still holding the last warmth of the day, the sky deepening into that quiet blue where everything feels possible. When we stepped outside to feed the stray cat, the moon was full and rising, slow and watchful, as if it had been waiting for us.

We moved through the small rituals- checking the mail, brushing past each other, laughing quietly-- before collapsing into bed, where time blurred and softened for an hour that felt playful and infinite.

Eventually sleep found us the way it always does: gently like a tide pulling us under.

But sometime in the night, I woke into something else.

You were theree beside me-- awake or maybe just present in that in- between space-- and I was no longer entirely inside myself. I felt it fist as a lightness, like my body had loosened it’s grip on gravity. Then I saw it: myself, rising. Hovering. Swaying in the air above us like a slow pendulum, weightless and quiet.

I drifted past you, not bound by the bed or the room or anything solid. Just movement. Just breath,

And then I turned back.

As I returned, our fingertips found each other- not clumsily, not by chance, but with intention, like something older than us had guided it. Your hand met mine, and suddenly we weren’t seperate anymore, We were suspended together, just above the mattress, gently spinning in that soft impossible space.

We didn’t speak. We didn’t need to.

We just… danced.

It’s your regular day off and you woke up around two this morning

Surfing on your phone reading the news and watching video shorts

I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

So I drifted back to sleep.

Then I had some blueberry coffee with almond vanilla creamer while you fell

back to sleep.

I sat by the heater

You let out a big snore.

Breathing rhythmically and softly

The daylight streaming in from both windows

Our plants drinking up the rays

You are curled up in a blanket and I’m

thinking about kissing your soft full lips.

You and I being and doing are God’s

thoughts and dreams

As we see things we give a point of view

When we love it’s the universe manifesting