Dewdrop

Why do I find your trembling gaze upon this weighted blade? Its fragile stem has aged; its youthful spine has curved from the years which your sorrow bleeds. That is your sorrow—I know it well; the soft surface of your transient glass has carried the moon for many years, and beneath those tides of silver there you sit, eyes wide with tears. Why do you weep? The crickets sound so mournful tonight; you have taught them how to sing. You used to be an ocean, you used to be the crown on glacial spires, you used to be immortal. Now, you tell me, now you wait for the sun’s soft glow, and each morning you find yourself annihilated. But you have carried the moon for many years, I whisper, and with its return so too do I find you once more on a silent blade, a smooth stone, a wildflower’s petal. Each morning you tremble in the face of death, each night you find yourself renewed, forgetful. You forget you are immortal still. Listening to me, you turn to crystal and, for a moment, I almost believe you might stay there forever, diamantine, defiant of the morning’s rays. But a quiet murmur follows and down you slip, along the blade, gracing it with youth once more as you fall, determined never to see the sun again. A shadow on the earth is all that remains.

Past Lives

Maybe it would be no more than a sweet nap under the blooming skies of spring. Perhaps I would wake up and recall my life as it had been, and all the ones before; like books in a library they would fill the beloved shelves of my gazing soul. Perhaps there you would be, just behind a page, and so a thousand years would pass by with the touch of my fingertips. And there I would be, the heroine of my forgotten myths, the dreamer who has forgotten how many nights she has spent dreaming. This was a life, I might murmur, and that one was too. And now, awake, I would gaze around me, marvelling at the many chapters fate has written, and wondering what my next dream holds. And would you be there? And would I recognise your face? Time has erased your eyes but left your smile—your parting gift to me. Who said that gods alone are immortal? Look at this, look at your smile; it has travelled through the centuries. Have I seen you since? Perhaps we are but the same troupe on that eternal stage, and every sorrow has been the same, every joy a rehearsal of the same story just with different lines, perhaps every love has been you. For whom do we rehearse? This rehearsal is truer than any play I have ever seen. May the fates watch me with their gentle gaze, watch our dance, every step, every spin, may they marvel at its perfection; at the end, as we take our bows, to you I will smile and whisper, “we have rehearsed all our lives for this.”