She Was the Color and the Fire

His world had become grey now that she had gone, had turned old and brittle,

The colors had drained out of it like blood upon the dust and sand,

All of its pleasures had faded slowly to ash and drifted quietly down,

For a time his world had been crimson, scarlet and sapphire,

Exotic and rich, the wild fragrances of life had filled each night,

His days had sparkled diamond, glistened azure and gold,

He had noticed, as if for the first time, the blossoming of every flower,

The song of the birds, the wind and the waves, the sun upon his back,

He had awoken from the deep sleep that had engulfed him in such sadness,

And now, before his eyes, the light of all the world dimmed and flickered,

A single candle guttering in the corner of his mind’s deep night,

He went to each of the places they had lain embracing, seeking her wild smell,

In the sheets and blankets, in his clothes, every scent a patch of warmth and light,

She was the color and the fire, she was the red passion and blossoms,

Standing open on the mountainside, dripping nectar in the brilliant sunshine,

She was the cool water falling down from the rocks, filling his heart like laughter,

She was the wind which made his peaked and foam crested waves,

Or calmed him to smooth stillness and peace like soft glass,

Each day he walked strangely through the vague and colorless world of patterns,

A priest performing the rites of a religion now bereft of its god,

Each night he ate the cold mechanical food and crept back into the silent sheets,

Hoping to dream, to find her there again in that place which knew no laws or limitations,

Most of him slept away each day in the dark and quiet corners of his mind,

While his body performed the ritual tasks of living in this alien place,

So far from home, so far from her, so far from the pulse of his life,

Beating there, so softly within her heart, rising and falling within her breasts,

He woke each night in the dream to the vivid blue of her shining eyes,

The rain shower smell of her sun gold hair, the electric feel of her cream smooth skin,

They filled and loved one another there, laughing and breathless upon the blankets of dreams,

He fell asleep softly in her wild embrace only to wake again to the half sleep of living,

And so he lived backward in time within the nocturnal house of his dreaming,

As one may sleep on the long journey and hope to wake nearer the destination, nearer to home,

Exchanging the cold world of present for the quick passage of time, and the warmth of dreams,

Until they came together again his world would remain empty and listless,

A sail waiting for the wind to fill it, a sea becalmed in the latitudes of silence,

And so he put out the sweeps and steered steadily onward, steadily homeward,

Each day he put the prow to the rising sun and rowed for the shore, for home,

He bent his back and dug the water deep and rowed toward her for all he was worth.

Eric M. Petit