I can't write a smile - but I can start by saying that this was the time
I
will remember.
There was something happening to us, something moving under our surfaces that
showed on our shadowed faces. It was something I wanted to learn about because I
didn't want to see it go away.
I can't write the world - but I can try to construct the words about a day worth
living. I
can sit and talk in the sunlight while the river flows past us,
oars stuck in
the rocky bottom, sunlight reflecting off the mirror surface into my face. I'm
squinting in the light and wondering if this can go on forever and knowing it
can't. The water flows past us, we've joined - all of us - we're laughing
and together.
I can't write a laugh - I can't hear the sound in my words. Can we make
up just one more song and sing it a cappella in the darkness? I think I can hear
that laughter in the back of my head. It was a single voice bubbling with
emotion from the tones. Can we take the time to dance again?
Because I can't describe the dance. I can still feel the rhythm in our
hands. It was a pulse, a heartbeat, it was clapping and stomping in a circle,
in
and out, rocks pounded on the walls, trash that became more of an instrument
than a violin. I can't write a word that encompasses the moment. I can't
write staccato beats of stone against stone and hollow plastic against
concrete, hand against hand, foot against dirt, quiet humming that became
a monastic chant. It's just a happy blur now.
My tribe knew this. My tribe understood that the song never needed a sheet of
music to find harmony. This song was borne on blood and tears in the dark -
my
God - it should go on forever, and it rings in my memory like that last note
that lingered and lingered… hmmmmmm
soft echoes that faded off the paint
sprayed walls.
I can't write my memories of the night. The starlight was so bright that we
followed the Milky Way to our destination. The tribe was dusty silhouettes in the night.
I wanted to touch that personification of the tribal and the contemporary- just reach my hand out and make them
tangible for my fingertips. The feel of smooth and cotton under my fingers - "sorry to run into
you" "that's OK, it's OK." It's OK
tangible, memory made flesh and
blood, with a voice and a smile.
But I can't write a smile; I can only touch on those thoughts that run
away. I
don't know if it ever really existed for longer than an hour - but what an
hour.
What a moment - why can't it last forever?
I can choose my instruments from the rocks on the way, I can pick my sentences from the sighs around me, I listen to the night again in the
echoes of
my mind. But I can't write it I can't describe it I CAN'T DESCRIBE IT. It's
drunken gibberish in the stars that fade around Mars to the south - it's a
rusty orb hanging there a million miles away.
It's so far away now.
I can't… I can't write the night, I can't make the sounds with my
words, I can't clap out the rhythm of the Tribe, I can't write that world -
I can only hold out a handful of dirt and watch it fall wordlessly through my
fingers as the sound fades.