Sacred edge (for Harriet)

There are sign posts that warn: Rock fall, Do Not Stop.
But I must stop. I must look up to see you. It’s like I am gazing at the sun
and how could something so luminous do me harm?

These hill line tree bodies,
these giants above: tricks in the sunlight.
But you know different.

There is a sacred edge to seeing. A squinting magnification of the senses, an acknowledgment that one thing, one tree, can be many things, all things. Its roots run between rocks, its roots mine minerals from the earth. Its leaves hold glimmers of sunlight. Its being holds space for mine.

The sun moves in the sky and casts shadows on the trail. I packed lightly, absentmindedly, not thinking I would wander into the hills — not thinking I would walk through the future to meet you.

Should I tell you?
These are my places of power.
Should I show you?
There are my places of meaning.

We go for a drive.
We are like explorers, so new to each other.

But I have been here before, beneath these trees, beneath these dream-like-leaves –to think these thoughts about you.

There was stillness. There was silence. There was you. You were dreaming in the rise and fall of your chest. I was dawn yawning and trying not to wake you with bare-footed tip-toes to the kitchen, the kettle. There was light, slowly rising. My thoughts were still mist. I was inhalation and breathing. I was remembering this place clad in the night, last night. The table held so many glass conversations, you, me, around sips and seats and soft kisses from the shoulder to the neck. This table, now morning, adorns this silent sip of coffee. I slip through the door to work, to leave you dreaming your dreams.

This late night, your evening, a couch, a conversation, a glass of wine. We share stories and speak bonfires; these embers cross continents and settle like tea leaves, like seeds in the bottom of our glass cups.

I am fragile and we spin. I am thirsty and we spin and those of us that drink, drink. These are dreams we are drinking. Dreams distilled in vinegar; dreams bitter to the tongue. I want these dreams to be laced with honey, with lavender, mugwort, with the taste of each other.

You want to go walking but I am hungry and still talking. You want to go running and we are running to the car. We are running up hills but in opposite directions — this compass of ours spins circles. I want to cross your circumference

but I am out of breath, breathing heavy to heaving — I scheme meditations like mantras — go faster, run faster — keep up
but I don’t mind, not really.

Falling behind
leaves
half the fun
for catching up.

Now it is raining
and the look in your eye asks for my jacket
and the sleeves fall floppy on your arms but you don’t mind, not really.

Now we are under a bridge, by a stream. There are flowers, purple to violet on the ridge. They are wild and blooming and I am not proud of my desire; I want to pillage their petals to adorn your hair.

Later we gather candles to the altar. We alter our bodies with song. We pour tea and make marks made with mud, mud drawn with gestures down the chest. I whisper sounds, secret sounds and I listen for echoes.

What is behind us?
That we carry lashed across our backs.

What is beyond us?
That we must fly foxes to cross.

What moves through us?
To entangle our dance.

Later we spin our bodies
into sidestars and caresses.
Caresses that could be drawn into constellations
and spoken like stories.
Stories once spoken to the skyscape,
to the landscape and the tree line.

Stories that say: I have found you.

Stories that say: be careful, there are rocks above you,
there are rocks falling between you.

Stories that say: make sculptures, move stones to make bridges and cross rivers to pick wild flowers for you.

This is my bouquet, resting at the base of my bed.

I invite you in; now in this moment,
I need you and I need you in.