Part 26 (2/2)

A face obscured my vision I screamed Not with fear-I had no acquaintance with fear-nor with startlement, because I had been aware of the presence already, but because it was the only statement that came to lips as artless asinto ush of water froladness thrilled my heart But its source was not me

At last! It came, unspoken-a different source than the voice before-the words thrust jubilantly to the sky: ”At last!” It came, unspoken-a different source than the voice before-the words thrust jubilantly to the sky: ”At last!”

He was up on legs like the trunks of sturdy saplings, beating at the earth with his feet He thumped his chest and shouted to the sun and clapped his hands ”At last!” He cried, his laughter like warm clay between the toes He shook his shoulders and stoain and again Though I did not understand the utterance, I knew its ed for suddenly found

I tried tolaugh Overhead, a lark chattered an extravagant address I squeaked a shrill reply The face lowered to ht, around me

”Flesh of ainstlike the goat on the hills of the sacredthe last res-the last of the breath in theh-cheeked, this Ada down like a folded leaf that drops sater to thirsty h cliffs, his eyes blue lusters beneath the fan of his lashes But it was his mouth that I always ca in the shock of those eyes Shadow ran along his jaw, like obsidian dust clinging to the curve of it, drawing ain

He touched atheredtheered at azed curiously at the rest ofthe instep of athered ether new reals upon it I clutched at hiiant as tall as he My first steps stuttered across the ground as the deer in the hour of its birth, but then I pushed his hands away My legs, coltish and lean, found their vigor as he urgedfar too fast, to keep up He e of strength and another of rasses and over fledgling sloes, the dark wool ofbehind me

We raced across the valley floor, and my neorld blurred around rew on the foothills a-bodied great cat I slowed, distracted by her fluidity, the smooth curve of her head as she tilted it toue was rough-unlike the adaainst me

Far ahead, the adam called Overhead, a hawk circled for a closer look The fallow deer at a nearby streaain, wordlessly, longing and exuberant I got up and began to run, the lioness at my heels I was fast-nearly as fast as she Exhilaration rose frohter Then, with a burst, she was beyond ht me up in his arms His hands stroked my back, my hips, my shoulder I marveled at his skin-how snificent,” He said, burying his face against ; although I understood his , I did not know his words I kneith certainty and no notion of conceit, though, that he was right

AT THE RIVER HE showed ain for me I lowered my head and drank as a carp peered baldy froasped as it tickled the backs ofabout h around a staunch rock as our toes skimmed a multitude of pebbles I wrapped runted a little bit as he swam toward the middle of the river where it widened into a broad swath across the valley floor ”Here-the current”

”Water” I understood, in the moment I spoke it, the element in all its fors that flow froh it had a gravity all its own-as though it could sweep me out to the cold depths of the lake and lull me by the tides of the h walls of our cradle: the great southernto heaven and, to the north, the foothills that becareat lake to the west

I knew even then that this was a place set apart from the unseen lands to the north, the alluvial plain to the south, the great waters to the east and far to the west

It was set apart solely because elt in it

But ere not alone I could see them, them, after a time, even as we left the river and lay upon its banks I saw the else: a sunspot caught in the eye, a ripple in the air, a shock of light where there should be only shadow And so I knew there were other beings, too after a time, even as we left the river and lay upon its banks I saw the else: a sunspot caught in the eye, a ripple in the air, a shock of light where there should be only shadow And so I knew there were other beings, too

The ada We did not know their na me to wake had not been the man's Now I felt the presence of it near me, closer than the air, than even the adae amazement, taken by his se sex He arh he had absorbed the heat of the sun, and I laid ainst his flat breasts and listened to the changeling beat of his heart My liuor overtook ht ofmy eyes, I would return to the place I had been before

For the first ti, I hoped not

I slept to the familiar thrum of his heart as insectsday

When I woke, his cheek was resting against the top of h his lips were silent

Gratitude

I aem prized from the reat reluctance By then the sun had th of our valley My stomach murmured

He ledcarefully around the pits and feeding the pieces to me until juice ran down our chins and bees caers and hands and laid his cheek againstwe lay in a bower of hyssop and rushes-a bower, I realized, that he must have made on a day before this one

A day before I existed

We observed together the changing sky as it cooled gold and russet and purple, finally anointing the clay earth red

Taken from me Flesh of my flesh At last I heard the ti moment Marvel and wonder were upon his lips as he kissedeyes I heard the ti moment Marvel and wonder were upon his lips as he kissedfor reater than the depths of the river or the great abyss beneath the lake

Froness there came a voice that was not a voice, that was neither sound nor word, but volition and coenesis And froe of power and fruition

There! A ht first so small as the tip of a pine needle It exploded past the periphery ofthe dark The heavens were vast in an instant, stretching without cease to the edges of eternity

I careened past new bodies that tugged me in every direction; even the tiniest particles possessed their own gravity Froy and light

I careat welter of water, the surface of it ablaze with the refracted light of heavens upon heavens It shookthat is plucked and allowed to resonate forever

I was galvanized,of eternity

Amidst it all came the unmistakable command: Wake!