Beyond Blue

for Sian, thank you

On the second day of the dark moon

when the churches were closed

and time itself slowed to a shadow,

he laid down and travelled north,

towards the distant blue.

For too long

he had wandered the ice,

following words,

like crumbs

left behind by the child

he once was,

red threads

of past wounds

he could no longer name

but still felt,

each a path

into the labyrinths

of his mind.

At times,

he held up a ring of borrowed hues,

searching for the sky that matched his longing.

In the distance,

a sea breeze

clears the mist.

Lingering,

a presence

unspoken,

nearly a memory,

mostly a feeling,

slowly forming.

At the edge of blue’s furthest reach,

beyond the 46th shade—

where light gives way to something deeper—

not darkness,

but the silence before color.

There, in that space,

she found him

lying curled up,

one leg crossed

over the other.

Stillness

held

like a question.

Gently,

she untangles the old fears

he tucked away

in the folds

of his forgetting.

What you long for,

she murmurs,

lives in the darkest of blue.

Some say,

if you climb high enough,

light scatters,

and only the longing remains—

an echo of love

still reaching

searching

No longer afraid,

he closed his eyes,

and became

the blue

beyond

sky