The words between the silences

Even the wind had a different taste on my lips

When you told me that you loved me.

Even if you never said the words.

I was parched for I had run such a long way,

From Athens and Katmandu actually.

I drank the words from your mouth

And I was soothed, and I was appeased.

I thought I knew the colour of the wind,

You made every shade of it fresh and new.

I tasted life and love and hate and jadedness

And quietude and solace in the time of catastrophe.

I didn’t know I was to meet you on this day.

I thought it would be a normal day,

Just like any other in this long sequence of days.

But when I woke up things had changed,

All by themselves, their hues were sharper.

The milk and cereals suggested transmogrification.

The orange juice was blue in the glass.

Those are unmistakeable signs that love is born.

The first words you spoke to me were:

“There’s a stone like a mountain in my shoe,

And this there horse is sure badly shod too.”

“I’ve seen turtles more thinly clad,” I replied.

“Crickey, that’s a bull’s eye if ever I saw one.”

“Mockingbird on the barn, raven in the rye.”

That was at the start of day,

Which together we spent,

We held hands after five paces.

That’s when I learnt to read your words and your silences.

You read the halt in my gait and my scars.

Even my long-time favorite crumpets

Lost their lure when you left me, for the night.

You had to go home for some reason I didn’t understand.

Even my enemies lost their sheen,

Even the stars looked dull and the mail serious

And the music soporific and the rest grey.

Imperious was the desire to follow you,

Even if this meant to travel to the back of the map.

The sea reminded me of your eyes,

The moon the opposite reflection of your pupils,

The clouds the wisps of hair on your shoulders.

And then morning came, exact and keen.

And your words rang like swords in my hands.

I tackled the world like a charging bull.

I scoured islands and coves and caves

And isthmuses and tundras, looking for you,

For traces of you. I followed your scent and

The silences you had left across the landscapes.

For between your silences I heard your words.

Those words meant freedom and cups of tea

And heaven in a handbasket; they meant

Crepes on a sunday morning and

Hot chocolate in the afternoon

And walking on disused railtracks

And sleepless nights shooting northern lights.

I arrived on the brink of the known world,

Eager to find and embrace you, at long last.

That’s when I received your postcard.

I hastened home with all speed.

You were waiting for me on my doorstep.

In the distance I could see your lips

Moving, moving

I knew the words.

Then as I moved closer I saw your lips

Motionless, motionless,

I knew the silences.

They birthed more hope than I hoped for.

Then you didn’t say something which made me stop.

Some things are better left said, or done, or both.

But you kept on not saying it.

You would’ve watched the world burn

Had you not found me.

Sadness paints everything grey.

Love on the run dyes every thing ecru.

I finally reached you and looked down at your shoes:

You were barefoot. I was still limping.

Yet there was the back of a map to be charted.

We set the badly-shod horse free

And he let us ride him. He was faster than lightning.

You murmured something which the wind took.

Mayhap that was an elaborate silence

Which said something that had not yet been said, ever.

You were so bold I wouldn’t wonder.

We shot through the degrees and minutes,

Arrived on the border where both light and darkness hover.

That’s when you worded the silence I’ll never forget

And silenced the words I’ll ever remember.

We were on the mark too.