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Hard to put into words. The drawing was easier, though nothing was easy. Two thirds of the way through the page, she was gone. So I just kept going, grief circling tear way paths all swirl of sorrowful leakage across the page. When I finished the first page, I gazed down at it for a while. Saw a great weave of emotion tracking such sadness. Then I stuck it up on the wall for a different view, and stood back. And there it was. Just jumping out at me. A big sky constellation of murmurings all cloudy clear dark bright at the same time. And so full of whisperings talk talk laughter singing, weeping sighing. A great ambling walk of circling pathways woven together for all of the dying and all the living going on and on.
I made another drawing and then another. Expanded the sky pages three by three. Oh but we did both so love a waltz time. Joyful lope, merry galumph ink strung together for dancing through all time. And you know, I only saw the holes later when I wasn’t looking for any. All those small circles. But by then they were all joined together and coloured in and way too small for falling through. Pearly paths linking, holding together the rolling on of the whole of life.
The autumn sun was setting to a low warm shout of orange gold cloud. I turned to look out the window, looked down along the grassy slope of the backyard. And there we are. You’re holding my hand, bending down to show me the perfect disguise of a tiny green cap orchid in the grass before I step on it. And there we are, my right leg raggedly tied to your left leg, stumbling hilariously together in a mad three-legged race across the bush picnic ground. And there we are, full on gleeful, not a care to our falling, laughing our heads off, chock full of living.
