701. evenings

In the evenings they would sit on the porch, of the cabin, in the mountains. The night air was cool and the sky was filled with stars, so many stars one could walk the grounds without additional light. From the woods, unseen, were birds, beautifully strange songs, and each in their own rocking chair kept metronomic rhythm, just the soothing sound of wood rocking and birds singing and a coolness of air that refreshed, purifying the lungs and body and mind. Rocking could do that. Rocking in silence, a silence natural, not imposed, a silence whole in itself, a place where words could add nothing, and so nothing was added, just a gentle rocking, on the porch, under the stars, to a chorus of birds.

Their chairs were side by side and across the divide, as a bridge across a river, or a chasm, or even across time, perhaps beyond time, perhaps in that magical space where nothing is wanted, nothing is needed, where there is both a sense of lightness and satiety, of wonder and wisdom, across this place, without a word, their arms reached and their hands found each other and there was a holding to hold in the way that neither is held, neither holds, for the twining of fingers and the warmth shared, on that porch, to the gentle rocking of wood upon wood, was something ineffable, a place where one could believe in the soul, believe that good would triumph over evil, believe in something more than flesh and bone, pain and sorrow.