Two

The Rain

It was difficult to find you the second time…but I found strong winds at the end of a hot day and saw the sun sizzle over the sea and slowly, and surely, undid the bonds of Heaven and made my way down to you.
You were running again and now, I was pleased to see you looking strong and fine. Do you remember: I was a runner once, when I was a girl? I ran fast, I did the sprints. I was the strongest runner at school. Did I ever tell you that? I believe I did. You got your strong legs and speed from me. But then you did something else with it. You did something to your body. You became lean; you let the energy burn slowly through you, the white fibers in your muscles went from pink to what they are now. An endurance of slow twitching red muscle.

In the twilight and the gloom I can see a fire in your eyes. For a long time I am by your side as the darkness approaches, and the sun falls harder and harder and harder until you’re covered in a wet blanket of darkness. I am sad to see you running alone in such a dark place. But your movements are certain, the look on your face resolute. Here you are running through a storm. Drops like silver bullets rain down on you, smacking your cheeks and arms, turning the ribbon of road into a silver snake.
You twitch when electric cords plugged into Heaven detonated jagged roots across the sky. I imagine there a deep gruff clearing of Heaven’s throat. Can you feel the very Earth move under your feet? I can see your toes have turned white, the skin wrinkly from being wet for so long. I see the fire flicker, as cold fear moves over you. I can see that you fear being struck down, but you keep on running towards the storm, and the light. Miles ahead, another bolt rips down upon the Earth. You continue on in that direction while I watched over your shoulder.

You cannot hear sounds in dreams, and the dead who linger on Earth can say nothing to their sons and daughters who drift and flow like curtains in wind against outstretched fingertips.
But I called to you on this night.
Maybe it sounded like Cranberries music.
Did you hear anything?
Did you hear my song in the storm?
“Neeeee Keeeeee….”
I saw your face light up with a violent electric blue. The black road seemed slick with oil, as though you were running along the back of a whale with a white stripe drawn, curling, along its back.

The dead cannot trouble the living. I know that. It seems to be, always, the other way around. I could never let go, and that was the death of me. This is the madness of it. My madness. You need to let go too. Just open your hands, stop running, and stand still. Breathe out and let it go.
But you pass right through me, the silver sheen of your rain splattered body curving right through my silver cocoon.
I wish I was not so preoccupied by this life after death. I’m glad that you are not, that you are…yes, I see it gleaming yellow on your sun baked arm…You are living strong. You were always a fighter. Do you remember, that’s what I called you, my Fighting Spirit? I always meant it in a good way. That you never gave up, you never stopped trying to do something worthwhile. Here you are again, at the end of such a long day in the sun.
But some things you need to stop fighting. Some things, some people you need to let go of. You can’t hold on to everything. You’re not Spiderman. Just let yourself be you and feel how good that is. Be you. A mother knows best and you know these thoughts you have…don’t hold on to them. Turn your focus off the past and onto what you have right here. You need to start running your life like you run these races: in the present. Oh, don’t you see, that’s the only way I can find you.

I see that the road you’re on is not so lonely after all. You find a shiny wet shadow and when the lightning crashes, it all lights up. Shoes, cap, swinging feet. More people coming up to you, or is it you coming up to them from behind?
You come upon more shadows, and then the first lights that bring you into the city.
Slowly, slowly, they hold out food and drinks to you, under the cover of yellow umbrellas.
Slowly, a trickle of people becomes a line and then a throng and then a throb of music and voices and cheering. It seems to rub my silver thread like a violin stick rubs a violin into voice.
With the voice I have, I call your name.
Once again lightning ignites the sky, and a roar erases the thin tunes of my voice, drifting through the rain to your white wet, floral ears.
I am seeing you run onto a red carpet to finish your first Ironman.
I am seeing you finding the strength in you that I knew you had.
I wish through all the rain you could see my tears.

As you limp from the finish, as silver foiled is wrapped over you, as your red skin melts and someone whispers something into the steaming petals of your ear, I find that there is no line left for me to unravel. I have seen enough to know that you have found a way to a measure of joy and personal power and happiness today and tonight. I fear it may not be enough for another season, and all its hot days without a race. But I don’t know for sure and you won’t know until you go out into the day and try. I wish I could show you the Spirit of Connectedness that holds me here to you, that links me to the web of the universe. I wish you knew we are together in an eternal unfolding of this moment. That we are part of the same fabric of the great thing that is Everything. Even a Spirit can miss, sometimes, the magic of sheer, raw life.
I see you step inside the flap of a tent.
I’m left with my tears in rain that will never be washed away.
I climb between the falling water where a rainbow will never bow over me.
I let the hush of the crowd, the lights of the world fill the void below and I sweep back to my bed in the Heavens.