Afternoon Shadow

 Days are long when they are empty.  I walked up a hill.  On the hill there was a tower.  A look out tower.  I went up the stone spiral staircase to the top.  The beacon went unused but people still looked out over it’s side.  As I looked at the long bold coloirs of the grass and the sea reflecting the sky a woman’s voice interuppted me.

“You can see a lot here but there’s more you cannot” 

I looked at her and saw her green eyes watching me.  Her hair was brown and the sun tinged it with auburn.  I wanted to ask her about these unseen things but I smiled.  She smiled also.

I looked out to the horizon and pointed to a small ship on the line of the sea.  I asked her if she could see it also.  She said she could nearly see it if she concentrated her focus and squinted her eyes.  I said that between the seen and the unseen there must be the partially seen and the almost unseen also.  She said that there must be the seen but not there also.  I did not agree but I did not wish to argue.

We then talked on about the grass and the sea reflecting the sky.  We talked of insects and of clouds and of seaweed.  It had seemed that we talked of all we knew of.  We walked along the fields and lost ourselves in a pathway.

The sun was about to set behind the line of the sea and though we had only met together it had felt that I knew her for longer longer than the empty day and bold bolder than the colours of the grass or the sea reflecting the sky or the rung of green around her circle of black.  We felt nothing embrassing about kissing.

And the kiss was warm in the cool shadow of the afternoon like the glow of heat in a blush and my eyes closed.

Water of her lips evaporated and opening my eyes I saw the closing of light and the rising of day with the afternoon shadows disappearing into it. 

She was gone also.

I smiled and rememebered all the people I had known.  Those who are there but unseen.  The memories that had collected in me.  All the bright and dark colours now part of the night.  All the hours of looking and talking and in the day’s last hour of light and shadows sleeping.