Often the hardest part of a story is the beginning. There is an awkwardness in the uncertainty that makes the first words hard to come by. The writer sits and stares at the page, the pen quivering in his hand, hoping for something miraculous to be born. A breath, a pause, and then a sudden dive into an unknown sometimes more frightening than anything he has ever experienced. He leaps into the realm of his soul. It is there he must come to terms with who he is.
He must jump, however. Sometimes the ledge, though appearing secure, is a much more frightening place to be. That very thing that inspires him scares him, yet it is the very thing that gives him life. That inspiration is the air he breathes and the fire that gives him warmth. It can also strangle his faith and turn all he longs for to ash.
In that uncertainty lays a truth, a truth much stronger than the reality found in the security of the ledge. Through weathered skin he feels the tingles of warmth that bely his deepest desires. In eyes made both clear and blind by time rests a cynic and a poet, and though the words ring true in the sight of her beauty the quakes shake him to his core. It is time.
The Poet
What is a poet without his pain? What is wisdom without the cynicism that flows between each lesson shelved within his heart? It is in all that he is that he gives all that he has. It is the inspiration that drives him onward and the sight of her that awakens the truth within him, and the touch of her hand that causes an oath to be reborn within his heart. He has no choice save to recoil or to jump. He trusts his instincts as he takes the leap forward this time.
It is the poetry that gives him wings and carries him as he plummets toward whatever is his fate. He could have stayed safely perched “up there” but something demanded he just…fall. She smiles and the words come to him. She speaks and the letters all make sense. Perhaps this is the moment where it all rhymes and suddenly he will find her in the clouds, his prose never more beautiful and his soul never more rewarded. Time will tell if those words read like Rumi or like Poe, as all inspiration shows us the truth eventually.
He is just the poet but she is the word, the ink, and the spirit that guides his hand.
The Intention
In the flesh, he is but a man and she but a woman. Yet in the essence of all things that mean nothing, they are so much more. Universes are born on their aspirations, worlds are built on their dreams and wonders are created in their desires. It is here he holds back his words, and she her heart, until something finally sets them free.
That is the frightening beginning. It is a space birthed in the hope that something that has been never been can somehow exist this time. Time, the enemy of all mortals and things made to die, is given relevance only through the fear that perhaps this time will be no different than the others. The intention of he that is but man and she that is but woman is that this time all that is hoped for, dreamt about and wanted will exist for both. When just a man and just a woman meet in the dark, it is the darkness itself that becomes a mortal memory.
When both the poet and the soul behind his work jump into the abyss together, time transforms from a fruit they feared to pick into one whose sweet nectar cannot be wasted. It is in the trust that they find their harvest, and in the leap that they find their trust.
It is there I find myself, a poet seeking the right words, softly whispering to that sweet intention that she will know that truth through prose written in the clouds. While he is but one side of whatever will come, he is still one side of that promise. It is that side he gives his attention, walking slowly alone with his thoughts until that smile awakens him and that touch tells him all he needs to know. While there is uncertainty in that frightening beginning, there is also so much hope.