Something Deep and Bright

It was talking to something deep in me that never got talked to, that hardly even had words.

"Like when the wind blows the clouds across the moon and the grass whispers along the road and all the trees pull like balloons at their trunks and one star comes out and says 'Come' and the ground says 'Stay' and part of you tries to go and it hurts—"

Like when you're standing at the edge of the ocean at sunset in a rising fury of tempest and the wind beats against you and the waves smash and tear at your feet and the clouds drive like screeching eagles to bar you forever from the utter West—

Like when the piano's silvery tones swell up like moonlight on deep waters and your heart rises with them and you feel you can almost touch the eternal Music until you hit a wrong note and crash in futility back to earth—

Like when the gentle breeze of a warm summer evening carries the night-music of the meadows to your ears and the fireflies mingle with the stars and all you can do is watch and wait—

—after Zenna Henderson, Something Bright, in The Anything Box, p 52.