On the Foreshore – A Romance

 

Boulder: So tarnished am I, and unlike the head of pin, I had not thought my scabrous skin would feel the feel of feet so thin and pale. Or that a dancing tap could beat a counterpoint to the constant slap and wipe of waves. And yet, here worn by a hundred hundred years am I, the stage for your long residence. Platform and prayer mat for worship. Angel, let slip the secret now, why do you not flap your wings that barely cast a shadow? Leap from cloud to heaven, vault the stars and seek a theatre where one such as you could earn applause, and honours from the stellar notaries?

 

Angel: La. You say such things my weathered rock, touchstone of my thoughts; and no grand angel I. For sure I have the wings and grace, but lowly in the order of the Lord am I, and you, boulder, should be bolder still. For you have bent the waves to match your will, they break and soak, but you, stage of my exultation do not move. Yes, yes, hells fire yes, I am the object of some others lust. The winds and every errant breeze would take me, fleeting, flitting for the joy of my soft limbs, but you stone are the anchor, tether that will hold me when the jealous gusts rise up in all their fury, rouse their sister in the Sea to hold me. You, profound and silicate secure me from the tempest of my suitors and their spite.

 

Boulder: Minnows paddle furious, within my steeping hollows, and the crabs crawl over me unlicensed, intimate. Each day the sea suborns the sand to wear my deadened skin, and I can feel my granite growing thin. And yet, blind I can sense your steps, the whisper of your dancing. My weight, immensity anchored into bedrock is uplifted to the kissing breath of starlight when your footsteps fall on me. I, clod, hardened by the pressured furnace, drink from the cup of nebulae when you hurl yourself in dance.

 

Angel: Then dance we both, dear stone, son of the earth herself. Dance we, for your stillness is the gorgeous certainty, and my movement draws you closer to the Lord. Dance we both until the stinging sea has scrubbed you to a pebble, bled on by my blisters, and the clutching hands of winds have torn my wings from me. Then with my dying breath I will swallow you entire, and scorn the lascivious breezy hands and say, “Fie! Feel my ire, for I live in my love, and he lives on in me.”

 

End

 

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