For Avis (On Torlum Hill)
when summer came, it never felt so warm again, in memory of the
soft blueberry muffins saturating those clement August mornings
(a quick pinch to the shops, but always back for lunch). we watched
our grasses grow thick and long as time swam by, caught in the net
of trips to castles and lochs and crannogs, ignoring the skies that
threatened bursts of black stygian rain between the sunset scenes.
blindly your rings reflected the light of the downpours, as hand-crafted
and metallic as the flecks of silver in your hair when enclosed by dark
black curls, but when the thunder crackled and the lightning spiked,
it was time to run; past the overgrown thicket of scottish heather,
through the cardinal victoria bushfires and up into the hillside
until our palms hit the ground, slowly at first, but then all at once.
that was all there was left to do. just run.
in time, from winter skies the snowdrops and crumbling black
mountainsides wedged themselves between crackjaw road signs and
square inches of hard, frozen earth, the last obtruding trig-point frozen
stiff against the saltlick. there was no instant to unbuckle tightly-fastened
trousers and make room for dessert before pancakes and berries arrived,
a steady hand ready to dole out spoonfuls of lemon and sugar - no, black bathers
turned to orange parkas, noses reddening and pulses cooling to a stop,
the tick-tick-ticking of the clock rushing to the finish line of a calendar year.
in quick succession, biting months lay wet in depthless pools of
cupboard spiders and silver lattices, skies melancholy with bleak and blue
deafening rain, as telephone poles made light splashes from distant rooms
in the house (no different to ours, just emptier now).
then, when winter ended, spring never arrived. besides coarsened
efforts, we poured packets of seeds, sago palm planters and milkbushes
and hibiscus across the mountainsides, thrown in wind like purple
thistle, and grieved a prayer for a little solstice heat. from warmer hands
to cooler foreheads, the gaping wet mouth of puddles borne far from the sun
bled blue like cobalt, dripping through cellar doors and up into the den pit,
built stoutly with sticks and stones and the mud that pooled from the deposited
steps. against spouting rain momentum slowed, hands bogged down by streams
of clag and clay, and in moments there was nowhere left to run. when the
steady ticking slowed to a stop, we pulled along the trails and past the peeling
vines, your hand rubbing against the roadside poppies and another
pressed into mine, while you whispered that it was finally alright to cry.
eventually, through the funereal gloom peeked one thin vein of sky, a sliver of
marigold sloped against the scratchy grey corneal incline. feet met wrist
met wind, and we found ourselves sailing, past the sawtooth coastline
and into the warm, humid heat of clement sunshine; my kept fingertips
reaching for long-lost evocations of mangoes, and papayas, and presents unwrapped
in bathing suits. as grips loosened and seconds slipped by, gone were lost summers
of warm, tepid waters and algid winters of sleet slicked by mariners, and in
welcomed the new season, marked by the excess of sacrifices and the absence
of tightly cradled hands. but finally, for the first time since the sun bundled
you up and carried you away on beating wings, summer was just summer again.
Cover Photo by Dr. Matthias Ripp. Edited by Madison Case.