Post by ddhlee on Jun 12, 2006 21:50:37 GMT -5
A bouqet of scattered flowers, a sky heavy and gray with rain, and no umbrella. The tragedy of it would have not seemed any less ironic.
Three days ago, before there were flowers to go and a rainstorm, the sky was a clear eggshell blue. The sidewalk sizzled black soles and you could almost hear the shoes cooking against a grill-hot street. Ten blocks ago, I dragged a cumbersome bag of work. Twenty blocks before that, I had done the same but with a greater level of confidence. Heat fumed and escaped as spirit plumes and the golden paths distorted their way with infrared curtains.
Step by step, the feet became hot, became so smouldering hot; became as though they were vessels for lit matches. Invisible smoke drank my flesh and prodded it with heat for drops of salty water. The air ate the endless fountains, never satiated, never clean enough to catch everything. Sloppy drops hit the hot pavement and sizzled. Eyes melted like the weather and searched for a place to cool that did not burn with the endless heat, a cool spot to stop and buy five minutes of liquid cold for a burning body.
A tired stare touched the windows that passed by and there.
It was only a second.
Against a white set of walls, sat a young woman in coiled brunette locks and a bright sunflower-tone sundress that stared out. As our eyes met, perhaps it was the coincidence of fate that I would have seen her.
Slim, polite in her seat, her head was touched with a simple straw hat that wore a ribbon that was accentuated with a yellow lily; silk or real it did not matter. I did not stare at a person and components; this was a human canvas that breathed with life. She sat as a painting never meant to be made with brushstrokes, a photo never meant to be cheapened into a pocket image.
With an ivory face, sensitive brown eyes stared back; surprised, pleasant: a curious expression of a goddess, and likewise untouchable by the hand of mortals.
My soul weeped, unable to fathom a moment in time so perfect. She may have been only human, but for my eyes, she bore the confident beauty of divinity within that moment.
The second belatedly ended. The eyes wandered away, the figure was passed. The heat continued to eat into my feet, the body still shambled half dead. But to say that was it would be untouched by the moment would be false.
Those feet would come again, days later perhaps to find the same person, only to find the day empty with images but gray rain and a possibility that it was all a mirage, no matter how far the legs backtracked, no matter what trophies were carried to award the image. Perhaps it was nothing more than an intention to show beauty and nothing more. For although I left empty-handed, secreted away from the essential functions of man, there will always be that canvas of untouched perfection staring out at me from a window, dressed in a sunhat and a bright yellow sundress.
Three days ago, before there were flowers to go and a rainstorm, the sky was a clear eggshell blue. The sidewalk sizzled black soles and you could almost hear the shoes cooking against a grill-hot street. Ten blocks ago, I dragged a cumbersome bag of work. Twenty blocks before that, I had done the same but with a greater level of confidence. Heat fumed and escaped as spirit plumes and the golden paths distorted their way with infrared curtains.
Step by step, the feet became hot, became so smouldering hot; became as though they were vessels for lit matches. Invisible smoke drank my flesh and prodded it with heat for drops of salty water. The air ate the endless fountains, never satiated, never clean enough to catch everything. Sloppy drops hit the hot pavement and sizzled. Eyes melted like the weather and searched for a place to cool that did not burn with the endless heat, a cool spot to stop and buy five minutes of liquid cold for a burning body.
A tired stare touched the windows that passed by and there.
It was only a second.
Against a white set of walls, sat a young woman in coiled brunette locks and a bright sunflower-tone sundress that stared out. As our eyes met, perhaps it was the coincidence of fate that I would have seen her.
Slim, polite in her seat, her head was touched with a simple straw hat that wore a ribbon that was accentuated with a yellow lily; silk or real it did not matter. I did not stare at a person and components; this was a human canvas that breathed with life. She sat as a painting never meant to be made with brushstrokes, a photo never meant to be cheapened into a pocket image.
With an ivory face, sensitive brown eyes stared back; surprised, pleasant: a curious expression of a goddess, and likewise untouchable by the hand of mortals.
My soul weeped, unable to fathom a moment in time so perfect. She may have been only human, but for my eyes, she bore the confident beauty of divinity within that moment.
The second belatedly ended. The eyes wandered away, the figure was passed. The heat continued to eat into my feet, the body still shambled half dead. But to say that was it would be untouched by the moment would be false.
Those feet would come again, days later perhaps to find the same person, only to find the day empty with images but gray rain and a possibility that it was all a mirage, no matter how far the legs backtracked, no matter what trophies were carried to award the image. Perhaps it was nothing more than an intention to show beauty and nothing more. For although I left empty-handed, secreted away from the essential functions of man, there will always be that canvas of untouched perfection staring out at me from a window, dressed in a sunhat and a bright yellow sundress.