687. to the mountains

He took her to the mountains, in autumn, to a cave of a cottage amidst the ducats of fall. Where before was stone, now only wood, old timber, worn in time of hand and foot, warm in history, of stories before fire and food. Everywhere, quilts, stitched by hand, of natural fiber, soft as fledged feather or early untrod snow, falling, tip-toeing from quiet skies. She would wake to flue and fire and breakfast on a tray delivered in flannel with a smile. All before the mist was gone while still the chill of night kept toes under cover. Years later, she often said, those sounds, of his feet on the hardwood floor, the opening of the flue, the crackling of fire, of pans and pots in the kitchen, of the heavy door opening on iron hinges; these sounds she would say, were the verse before the verse. Each sound, as if alive, in tune, communicating an action, creating a space as if hands reaching forth and pulling back the curtains of time where even clocks seemed to tick slower, bowing to breath to mark the moments, to acknowledge and cede the stage to life, to love, to the wonder of two people revolving around the axis of mystery.

And when breakfast was taken and trays set aside, when sunlight shown through laden firs, through windows pane-ing crosses upon their bed, when bejeweled snow sparkled of day waking, then, knees bent to table, he would take pen to parchment, her head on his shoulder, eyes closed, listening to the ink, the nib, that warmness of creation and she would begin to breathe as she did at night when her hands hung his arms like vines round boughs and his eyes were as moons on fire and his hair askance in homage to desire. The sound of his pen, of paper absorbing the essence of his mind, of loops and dashes and periods and of spaces too, as if inhaling before again plunging into verb and standing upon nouns; and in this way he made love to her before he made love to her and by Janus she struggled to explain how one was different from the other.

After some time, as billowed sail she heard paper snap, vellum taut in hand, and the familiar clack of pen put to rest on the night table. As if to brace for the breath to come, of the reading, his soul breathing, her arms tighten around his torso, hair flowing over his shoulder, down his back and over his cold erect nipple. Then words came, slowly at first. Keeping her ear to his chest, she listened to verse and to heart, to the expanding of his lungs, to the rise and fall of each line, each rhyme, to the melody that surpassed language, in the way of food, of water, of the touch of a hand on fevered head or lips on love long lost returned, recovered, embraced and multiplied. Words became something other, perhaps a pulse, a sigh, some hidden communication from some hidden place beautiful, some oasis within his cartography undiscovered. Taking his left hand, she laced her fingers into his and squeezed warmth between them as the gentle humid waves of her breath rolled across his chest, as the dancing of the day to come, in her mind.