One Mid-September Mist
He sat down on the wet grass and - unashamedly and without restraint
since overwhelmed - cried, and in this crying began to call upon God,
any god, upon any Deity or being who might be there, anywhere, to guide
him, help, forgive. For she was dead, having killed herself that warm,
bright, May Monday afternoon while he, selfishly, had returned to his
home despite her pleading for him to stay: for him to be with her, so
that - he remembered in his anguish that she said - they might sit
awhile in that small garden tomorrow, that Monday afternoon...
Thus - after nearly a month of strength regained; of walks; of
sometimes vaguely smiling - he became again in that one long instant of
suspended Time as a small child, lost, without a home: someone needing,
pleading for, some Sign, however small; some show of Hope;
some glimmer amid the bleak blackness of remorse, of guilt, of suicidal
thoughts which then, as several time before, came over him, a lingering
dense cloud covering Sun of Day, Moon of Night, the warming
welcoming joy-bringing Sky of blue.
He was in a copse at the bottom of a steep hill damp from the
nights and mornings of mid-September mist and rain, and the two
Sparrows that chattered, tree to tree, might be calling to him and
telling him that which he so earnestly desired to hear - but he did not
anymore understand their language and so sank down to his knees, there
on the damp and muddied ground, to pummel his fists into the
leaf-littered earth.
"I am so sorry, so sorry..." he cried, aloud, in words, then wordlessly
as his body strained forcing breath and words from him until his back
arched to move his head toward the sky where dripping rain fastly
washed it to flood his tears away.
But no Sign, no show of Hope came upon or toward him, and slowly as an
old man injured he raised himself to stand again then totter forward,
half-stumbling as if learning to walk, again.
And the world around him was unchanged.
DW Myatt
JD2453999.101