SILVER-LIGHT (DREAMING ALIVE)
Love Jude
No one dares to know how long ago, and whys are never really questions. Listen to the ages, and to the earth in silence and whispers.
The trees had a dream / And the rocks, they heard -- in a long time of listening -- across the pulses of the earth's breath. / A face began carved into the side of a mountain. / A small stone beside an ever-tall pine tree / Called by the whispering / A breath began as a smile heard a hard wind reach to the sky. Birth and a long time ago, when there were no men to hear / The sky heard where the earth wasn't ready. Birth and a long time ago, when there were no men to year /
Today, Silver-light flies. Alone through a mountain of clouds sharing his sweet almost silver voice with the wind, he flys. Hours pass as do days, and his loving is for the sky and the wind, the only voice he's ever known, or can remember. But silver-light doesn't try to remember anymore. To remember voices he can't hear, that would be stupid.
He flies, unseen through the skies and wind of the earth. His skin, even his long-fingered wings are as clear as pure glass. Rising from a cloud out toward the sun, higher dreaming hard into that sweet warmth, he's but a sparkle of light, even forgotten by the clouds barely before he's past.
Often Silver-light sleeps as he flies, as he can never land. He can't remember how he knows this, but he does know it. Even if he thought to land, which he hasn't in more years than he can count on the fingers in his wings, he couldn't. He hasn't any feet. He hasn't any legs. Flying at night when he isn't dreaming, sometimes when he wants to talk and the wind isn't blowing strong enough to listen, he flies down and close to the earth. He doesn't know why, but he knows that he shouldn't, but still he needs to talk, the silence in his sky begins to seem like it will go on forever. And he flies down close to the earth.
Down, only to the mountains, he should be safe, his whispers speak to themselves. He isn't really coming close to the earth, it is coming close to his sky. Yes, they are really part of his sky. And always the same mountains, but this he doesn't care to think about. They're just maintains. Now clouds, even the winds he remembers and carries their names with him. Like, white fact without a tongue. Long wind and no time. And his closest friend, Wind that forever returns. But Wind that forever returns, hasn't returned for too long and his long bending ears carry the tears of their silence. Tears that are sometimes too heavy to carry. And so down again to the mountains he flies. No, not to land and walk among the life of earth. But to exchange whispers with the trees.
It was maybe fifty years ago, the last time Silver-light flew down to try whispers with the earth. But fifty years is not really long for Silver-light, as most of his life is spent asleep in flying dreams he can never remember when he is awake. He knows that he does dream, and sometimes he feels that he can almost remember. This is one of those times. He really wants to talk to the faces he meets in his dreams, but this he doesn't know as he doesn't remember where his dreams carry him. And so down he flies to these mountains, these mountains for which he has given no name. They are only part of the earth, and so they aren't really real.
Maybe these mountains are a part of his dreams, of which he can never remember. Maybe not. He flies far above, around and around. No clouds grow to catch his whispers, deep in this night. No winds whisper to him to ease the weight of tears that grow so alone in his ears. And so down he flies slowly, ever so slowly.
He really doesn't want to go down, he knows that he can't even think about landing on the earth. For really, the mountains are part of the earth, not of his sky. And if he did land by mistake he would die, for he has no feet to catch the ground. He doesn't ask how he knows this, when his ears grow heavy with tears, he doesn't really care and so doesn't really think. But his wings whisper to him that this is so, and something deep inside of Silver-light makes him always listen when his wings do whisper to him.
Carried by the silence of his dreams echoing inside of him, he flys lower toward the mountains. His clear but almost blue eyes watch the mountains grow slowly toward him. He knows that they can't move, that they aren't really rising up into his sky to greet him, but this he tries not to listen to as his ears need to hear someone whisper to him. So large the mountains grow before him almost as ever large faces staring out into his sky. Staring out now to see him.
He flies even lower than the tops of these mountains to find some trees that will whisper to him. People, he doesn't even think of people as he flies lower, for as long as he can remember in his long life, he has never even known that there were people alive on the earth. And Silver-light was alive even when there were no people yet alive. And so he doesn't think to see the two small tents that are set up at the bottom of the whispering trees he has come to whisper to.
Down and around this tree he flies, his eyes loving its sweet green flavor. So green like the earth he sees all the time form so far away in his sky. Around he flys whispering, so close but never close enough to touch. So sweet are this tree's green whispers, almost like fingers, wingless fingers reaching out to him. Fingers calling his now seeming small body closer, close enough to touch. But his wings don't forget and they keep his body from blindly crashing into this tree.
Annie wakes up listening to something. She doesn't know what. Soft music seems to whisper to her. And suddenly she is frightened. Where is she? It's so dark, where's he room. She is afraid to sit up. She should be home in bed. Is she still dreaming, she still hears the music, it's almost like singing, but it's so small and yet so close. But then she remembers, she is camping up in the mountains with her mother and her boyfriend. But it's still so dark, and still she hears the singing, singing? It's almost like a voice trying to talk to her. And again, she begins to be afraid, it's so dark alone in her tent, she wants to run to her mother's tent and curl up next to her, but yes, her mother's friend is there. She’s ten years old and she promised that she was old enough to go camping and not be afraid.
And so she whispers out from her sleeping bag very quietly so her mother or her friend won't hear. "Is anyone there? Hello?" For a minute the singing still goes on and then it stops., She listens harder and only hears the pine needles crackling in the wind. She knows about pine trees, for she is ten years old.
Inside his head, Silver-light heard something ask if anyone was there. It was so clear, even the wind that forever returns never spoke to him so clearly. He stopped his whispering to listen and noticed that his wings were carrying him away from his tree. Why are his wings afraid. Something was whispering to him and his ears were crying so hard that he took over his wings and flew back down to that tree. Listening around and around the tree he flew. But he only heard the whispering of the pine needles into the soft wind. He tried to forget and fly back up into his far sky, but his ears wouldn't let him. More tears grew, crying to him to stay, they heard a whisper, and his dreams seemed to want to come to him even though he was awakes.
So, Silver-light stopped listening to his wings and flew even closer to that tree. He began whispering a special song, a song he only whispers when his dreams make him want to fly to the earth.
Almost back to sleep, Annie is thinking of very little as she lies curled up in her sleeping bag. The wind quietly plays in the trees like a lullaby. Not really afraid anymore, she is ready for sleep. When suddenly there seems to be more than the trees whispering. It's almost as if someone is out there talking to the trees. No, not to the trees. It's as if someone is trying to talk to her. But the voice is like a feather in the wind, maybe bird-like but more solid, more real. This time she thinks that she should be afraid, but she really isn't. "What are you? Please talk to me ... Are you a tree I can't seen in the night? Are you a wind I never met? Please, my wings won't allow me to come back during the day. Please?" So soft was this whispering, was this singing, that Annie couldn't believe that she wasn't really dreaming. No, she had to be dreaming. So sad and still, it was so beautiful. She was afraid to say anything, it might go away again. And somewhere inside she knew that the singing was just for her. She didn't need to run to her mother, this singing was hers. She didn't need to talk to it for it was singing just to her. Yes, Annie now was afraid that the singing would go away, afraid that she would wake up, so she just laid there alone in her sleeping bag, half asleep loving those ever sweet whispers that seemed to reach right into ther head. Sleeping. It was getting close to the morning with the sun ready to mark this mountain with its shadows.
Yes, it was almost morning and Silver-light could no longer ignore the stronger whispers from his wings. It was time to fly, to fly higher ever higher, back deep into his sky. And so just before he allowed his wings to carry him away, he whispered his song one last time, hoping with every part of his body to hear that something else whisper to him one more time.
By this time, Annie was deep in sleep and could not even hear Silver-light, even though he poured all the shattering tears from his ears into that last whisper. Back into the sky he flew, his forgotten dreams building more tears than he could ever remember in his ears.
And later that day, as he flew through the different winds and clouds, whispering to none, trying to reach himself into sleep, he found for the first time that he couldn't. It was as if his wings would fall asleep with him, causing him to fall far into the earth, if he did sleep. And so he flew. First he tried to fly far away from that mountain, but found his ears crying even harder the farther he flew. And so he flew away and then back again, over and over in the loving sun that day. Passing many clouds and winds and never even whispering their names. trying not to think of that losing voice he had heard so clearly in the night by that whispering tree. Yes, just flying and trying to think of sleep. Listening to nothing but his thoughts of sleep, and still it would not come. Ever far up in his sky, so alone and with an echo from the night.
When Annie rose from her tent that morning, the sun was halfway risen into the sky. A few clouds seemed to pass ever so slowly by. And there up in the mountains the sun seemed not warm, but ever so bright. Her eyes must have still been asleep, because the sun hurt them. She could still almost hear that sweet whispering that she had heard last night. But Annie told herself that she was 10 years old, and there is nothing in these mountains that would whisper just to her, so she must still sort of be dreaming. Why was she staring way up high into the sky as if she was looking for something. The sun hurt her eyes, and there is nothing up there in the sky but for some clouds. And 10 year olds know that clouds don't come down at night to talk to little girls. From behind her, she could hear her mother starting to move around in her tent. Annie knew that if her mother found her staring up into the sky on a day with the sun so bright, that she would yell at her like she was a stupid little girl. She would think that she should have left her with her grandmother, like she always had when she was younger. But it was so hard not to look up into the sky, it was as if there was someone up there calling to her. Yes, she is 10 years old and it's stupid to think that there is anything up in the sky but for some clouds, and everyone knows that clouds can't call to her. And so after a minute but before her mother came out of her tent, Annie stopped looking at the sky. Her mother called to her, and Annie turned to see her mother standing alone with the sun making her mother's blonde hair shine like magic. Shining in her eyes, but softer than the sung itself. "Come on, Annie, let's look for fire wood for breakfast. Uncle John will be waking up any time now." And so Annie tried to smile and forgot the night and yes, its dreams, as she walked off to follow her mother into the grouping of trees back behind their tents.
-jude