A-li-s-de-li-s-gi

Time had never been more than a pattern, a rhythm . The sun emerged in place of  stars and encompassed the dark. Then the sun bowed before the moon's glow. Everyday. Without pause or regard  for life below.

Time was the space between eating and sleeping.  Time was the ground at my feet.

Time was necessary but merely there and mostly forgotten . 

In that splintered moment we were robbed of it.

Time was everything I needed all at once. With a single second , this life ended. The world erupted into flame and smoke.  

I often think of that moment before the end .What an illusion, time .

It was a dream, I was dreaming.

It is the longest day of the year.

Watching the large man today, I pad my way around. Evading his attention and subsequently his curses. This has become a bittersweet undertaking.  I cannot say it takes much effort to elude the oaf.  Joy lies in knowing the booted , clunking feet are no match for the swift , soft pads of mine.  My strain is composed of grief ; running from a human for the first time in my life.  I was once loved. 

Large man buckled under the weight of felled trees. His knees hit the wet earth with a slew of grunting . He could not make his body return to standing . The timber rolled off his shoulders into a splay of wood on the ground. His attempt to drag his load with nothing but his back was curious. Where was his family, his people to assist ?  Large man has always been alone.  He’s taking his ax to the trees near the stream. Did he not like the fish that lay at rest  in the shaded water? Did he not need the ancient  banks? It must be nescience. The habit of this alien creature offered me a souring perplexity. Large man wants the trees and drags them back to the flattened dirt he sleeps in. The shorn trees left  clumps of dust  swirling in tiny eddies. Pinesap, sweat , and smoke burdened the air . 

I allow my eyes to make contact , just as large man completes a groan of defeat.  I do not look away when his face contorts into rage.  I know what he wants from me. Large man wants my fear and submission.  Large man would have wanted a mongrel with him in the wilderness. 

Large man wanted everything . His rage stirs him into a feckless lunge towards me. I’m out of reach with ease . His cursing bores me as I lope away from the creek.  What is sport for me seems like much of a hassle for large man. I wonder how long he will expend energy attempting to subjugate me.  He chases me into my domain, the pines that stretch for miles.  The evergreen scent is a rush and I savor my breath.  I’m out of large man’s eyeline in seconds . I face him from the shadows of a rotting , fallen tree. Large man spits and shuffles back to his work.  I will creep back out to watch soon, but it’s the hunt that calls me now. It excites me beyond the satieties . I’ve taken to leaving the stripped squirrel carcasses around his hovel.  I know how much large man needs food but has no people. If he does not capture the game, the game will not be eaten. Not by him anyway. 

I luxuriated in a fat  field mouse that made a poor choice.

I’m no longer interested in squirrels and enjoying large man’s hungry evening.  

I’m on the move to where I do not know. I allow my legs to wander all night. Silvery moonlight slips through the canopy and sets alight pine needle alcoves.  It’s a fine night . One could cover much ground , if inclined to traverse it.  But not that I would. Home did not move for me and I would not move in search of it now. Large man needed a witness , a solemn testimony of his life’s work.  He worked to erase the past. The sound shelters all laid to ashes, the dead become dust and no drums beat.

I walk in his path. I’ll linger on.

Sway. I think of the human I know as Sway. She moved like water rolling in a bowl. She danced to her labors everyday . She  sang a welcome to the moon, in thousands of those balmy evenings.

Sway. Many have loved me, all the while I have loved Sway.

She was chosen,  quite deliberately. My people are my Sway’s people. But I chose Sway.

We grew together, juveniles sneaking tidbits and lavishing little treasures. Igifted Sway a vole and she answered with twisted reeds and shells laced around my neck. She hummed with pleasure hearing my clacking shells that announced my arrival. Sway fed me from her bowl and gingerly chose the best morsels. Her laughter boomed when I ravished them in quick bites and swallows.

Sway was twisting and twisting reeds into the beginnings of a basket . I stole her attention, swatting and mouthing the flopping grass. She musters a stern grunt and pushes my chest away from her work. I answer with a roll to my back.  My limbs curled and belly gaping, I rolled in the dirt. Sway purses her lips and spits her breath out. That sound. I live for that sound. Sway has easy smiles and reluctant furrowed brows. But I got her.

Sway is gone. The first to lie still  and strewn across the hallowed path . The path to our home, to our fire. Where I’d known her love since I was born, Sway lay still, a wail locked in her expression.

My first taste of horror and grief all at once.

And I ran.

Large man’s people swept through my village like scythe through the grass. With bloodlust as far as I could tell, the men stole lives,  pillaged every shelter , cache and burned what was left.

I always listen for Sway. Without warning or intent, I am lost in listening, in waiting.

I attune back to the night.  There is no singing anymore.

Winter Solstice and silence. First in kind.

When I  made the somber choice to stay near large man, I could not interpret my compulsion.

Surely I should go, sojourn and saunter  onto my next willing human. Someone keen on a talented mouser.

Yet I could not leave. When I moved beyond my territory, a sickening burn entered my body.

It took many months to come to understand.  Even my busyness , my taunts of the large man, the changing landscape, nothing could not stop it.

One day I understood I could not escape the splintering silence that was  life without Sway.

If I  have enough to love another, I will stand between the harm and her.

She called me  Ka He.

I will learn everything from his ways and I will be Ka He.

I do not celebrate the moon’s triumphant light.

The sun misses the sky and I miss my friend.