sights & sounds

as i walk back from the train station towards home, i cross a football field. Often its late in the night, the stars are out, a few folks are running or walking on the track. I take off my footwear, hold it in my hand or put them in my bag and walk barefoot on the field. As I walk, I gaze up at the sky and watch the stars burn, and often my favorite poem comes back to me, 'how should we like it were the stars to burn, with a passion for us,  we couldn't return?....if equal affection is not to be, let the more loving one be me ".

I stand and stare at all the stars, the big ones, the small ones, the ones that glitter and the ones that don't. The ones that form a shape and the ones that stand alone. But mostly, my eyes seek one set of them. I begin by identifying three of them in a row and slowly it begins to take shape. Orion, the hunter. I often look at it and smile, or cry, whichever way my heart is tugging that particular moment. But its one of the few moments when I truly feel in the day.

Standing there barefoot in the middle of a field, I think of you. I think of all the things they said you'd be, and of all the things you'd shown to be, of all the things you'd said you are. Until one day, when you couldn't keep up the act, & then the curtain truly fell. Or is that when the show really began?

I slowly lower my eyes and look down at the ground, the stars come away with me, in my eyes they burn and eventually fall.

I walk silently,  stealing glances at the sky now and then, realising that Orion is following me home.

Before i step into my house, I gaze up one last time before my roof blocks the sky out, I often wonder if the house is a shelter or if I'm safer here out in the open sky with Orion looking over me, or me looking over at Orion.

Late at night when all the chores for the day are done, and there's nothing left to do,  I'm sitting on my bed with my book or my journal, drinking my glass of milk, I now and then hear a car go by, I know from the sounds the car makes that's it's a taxi. My heart skips a beat, because it's that familiar sound of you approaching.

It reminds me especially of the night you'd left everything behind to be with me at midnight. To show me my first falling stars and to share stories and songs.

As we lay in each others arms that lovely night, looking up at our guardian Orion, I knew not that you'd suddenly leave. Even the night ends gently and with warning. But you, you were there one day and then you weren't.

Finally one evening when you didn't use any words to say this was over, but made it clear anyway, the stars didn't show in the sky. For many nights after that evenings, they didnt shine or glitter or even show up. Were they mocking me or were they grieving with me?

One night, I stepped out into my balcony to blow away the candle, extinguishing my only companion, and I looked up. A clear sky, full of stars looked down on me, Orion smiled gently. Then I heard a taxi pass by, stopping for only a split-second before moving on, making my heart stop for just that tiny moment. In that moment you, Orion and me were all there. And just as suddenly and left, leaving me with those sights and those sounds.