We've
given scars to the sky.
Mean
ones, overlapping. Intentional. Why?
Splayed,
obscene, over the dimming boardwalk and sand... higher even than the coral and
sooty purple of the day's death... jetstreams have carved up the blue in fat white
gashes.
No
accident. Then why?
We
must have had a reason. To betray a secret without a word? To pinpoint?
I
see it!
X
marks the spot in the Heavens!
I’ve
sought more than prettiness in so many different views, lured by shimmer or what’s
hidden or a cool fire. I’ve found no end of pretty, and the pretty was always
lifting. But pretty is there for any and all who see, to breathe of and dote
and feast upon. You need only look.
But… to where? To what we sought? No. To a blue expanse, yawning and wide,
of still more pretty, of more seeking. Wrong spot.
Until now, until here. We’ve been gifted the map!
There’s so much sky. Limitless margin for error, we could never seek enough to fill all those wrong
guesses in the blue.
And now we're different, now we're golden, don't you see it...? If there's treasure in the skies, it's
revealed for miles around, no one could miss it. God himself would have needed
two hands to slash so vast a sign.
Dig
here! Dig up!
No.
I'm too quick, feckless.
The
sky is resourceful. The X is less violent than a second ago. Ah. The sky is not
so easily marred as its mate below. The Earth is sodden, impressionable,
literal. But the sky?
(Don't
even ask after the sea. It shares with no one.)
Our
jetstream crisscross is fading now. Our temporary clue. Hurry! Longitude,
latitude! But I know nothing of them, even with a compass or a sextant.
Jot
it down, somehow… A messy scrawl on a napkin or take a picture? Scan, fast.
Find a relating point on the shore... the jetty or the gouged old Casino?
Look
up. Long arcing lines of chalk now, lightly traced. No longer gashes. Each
being erased with steady grace. As sunset goes, so too the scars. Never mind.
X
marked the spot in the Heavens. But it's night now, and you missed it.
I
was there, saw the exact secret. But I'd never be able to lead you to it again.
I could sing of it until I dropped or you ceased to care, but I couldn't take
you by the hand to the spot. Only wish I could.
The
sky brushed off our clumsy hunt. Its treasure is safe from us.
I
stare and it’s inky and changed. It’s cooler and leaner. It all seems to hum ‘no’.
But
the scars were unimaginative, weren’t they? They never could have worked, not
really.
I
huddle to myself. Then I realize I was wrong. The sky is not protecting its secrets.
In
shrouded quiet, the sky was showing me how.
© Eric Yves Garcia, 2014
