Phoenix
by Dale J. Sprague
Flash Fiction
Passion Lady
Through the prime of her soul, she has been with him. He does his work faithfully. He is utterly faithful to his habit, which includes her. She does her work practically and sensibly. They lived silently and darkly, a well worn path amid their pastoral home and habitat. But one night, she awakens. The hour is dark and deep. Her body is tired. Her spirit, over'worn. Her first thought, "Why can't I sleep?" Gripped with anguishing angst, she looks at him, profoundly asleep, oblivious to her, but now, with what was familiar and fact about him, she feels uneasy. It is she who has changed. She knows she should not feel so alone with him. But how could this happen? By her mind's dead reckoning long ago, she evaluated and decided, 'Don't be discouraged, he's good and good for marriage.' She loved nature, close'by and a'far. She liked living far from the crowd. And she liked his way of making a place for himself..the quiet, the peace, except for what they disturb, giving and taking..they lived a life mostly of their own making. It worked for her, the splendors of the wild seeping into her every fiber, but the balm of nature and her husband..now greying and wanning darker
Throughout the years, she lived and worked at his side. About his abruptness and matter'of'factness, she was lenient. His misanthrophy..convenient. But she could not sleep. There must be more. She feels it deep. Something asleep is a'stirring, aroused from so much life enpassing
For its sake, something new will soon be wide awake. So, in this night...No!..she wasn't going to let this one slip away like so many before. With stricken soul, she feels an ache. She reaches out, she stretches out far and past her horizons..into the heavens, her silent weep for life to keep was but a prayer. And this time, this time the tremor of her soul was felt from a'far
A new spirit felt her lament and her long sleep he saw. He seemed everything she was praying'for. He loved and let love. His space, indeterminant and large, she loved and adored. He spoke, heart'to'heart..he felt, soul'to'soul. Now she knows...there is somthing, there lives some one more. Through their dialogue, ever more and more, she felt impassioned with he, a dream of life, of love, each sharing. She has long been growing..subtlely, imperceptibly, and now awakened, she..her dwelling, her stranger'husband, it has all become so small. She knows..change is impending, she is molting. What has awakened will forever change what has become so familiar..her place, her world, it can never be the same. Now that she feels a greater space for love, she feels how much she has grown. She feels an emptiness, a greater space into which she has yet to grow
About her celestial lover, her husband'stranger must know. He has to learn, there must be more for the both of them. It is a great, and a wide, and a wonderful world we all live'in, yet to them, it inspired love no greater than their house, its yard, their territory. To the husband'stranger in her bed, she boldly proclaims her need for the celestial lover. She reveals her love for him. Her husband'stranger..he cries, he weeps. He rages hot, his sweat freezes on his icy face thinking of the celestial lover and what he stole. But she was resolved. Her soul needs more space, it needs peace, at one with all
It needs greater space, freedom, greater freedom of mind, so the dark is dark, and light is light, and colors in all their splendor, all sights and sound, all touch and feel..to taste the dew upon her moist lips in the midst of an aestival dawn where all is springing to life..it needs to be, she needs to be, to feel alive!..to feel intensely once again
Once born, or re'born, life is an inalienable right, living without regret or hesitation..a gift, not resignation..all sight, sound, and sensation. To love and be loved, and within its beauteous fold...deep sweet sleep. This need, to be with one who lets her breathe, she is enabled to breathe..this freedom, the husband'stranger in her bed did not give, and more and more she is drawn to the celestial being of her dream
Yet, she is afraid again...once from life slipping from her grasp, now because this dream, what she has been dreaming for so long..it is alive! Yet, steadfast and resolved, she rests assured, at least for now, she takes comfort and appreciates that apparent chance opportunity, its convenience, the celestial being lives far away. The fear of life slipping away was replaced with another, much stronger
From the husband'stranger she separates. He grows sullen, alternating hot and cold, capricious, a new world opening, to her it's compelling. Her celestial lover, she loves and loves. Her mind is alive, her life is moving. And the celestial being..patient, understanding, ever responding and loving
To her own place now, down by the river, she prepares to move. The man that was in her bed, still familiar, yet a stranger, a phantom of her past. It couldn't last, nor wouldn't live. Eyes for her, nor freedom to be, he did not give. In all their time, it has been together yet darkly separated..always blind, and what was not..either asleep or near'sighted. For to him, her husband'stranger, everyone is alone..a'last o'sorrowfully alone! To him she was alone like he, and just being together is all any two can do to lessen the growing loneliness they be. But she down deep always knew there was more, a greater world in which to be, and her celestial lover..he agrees
Separation and departure from nature so familiar seems inevitable, probable, and desireable. Many times she has flown far and away, to love her lover, to be loved by him. More and more she feels it, a strong stirring, its righteousness, yet..with nagging misgivings. She feels love a'new, its health and wealth in a new world..its brightness, she feels life opening, like a blossoming bud having throughout its infancy no sense of itself, nor of what would happen once seen..the radiant light, the beauty born clean
Love cast its brilliance and warmed her soul. More than once, she langored laconic, resting deep, basking and drank deeply..her heart opened..her soul, peacefully. Now fully blossomed in all her array, life should be clear..her direction, a clearly marked passageway. But an Earthly soul has its own wisdom, its own gravity. It is not just simple evolution, evolving from one to another, entity to entity. We live in a continuum, and its center is the soul. Her center is her Earthly soul. Her life..begins and ends with it. She knows this. Down deep she has always been sure of this
She is single because she is singular with each person she loves, differing in shape, spirit, and color..each with its own flavor, its own delights to savor. To each she connects..tight, short, and ever straining. All is a'streaming, day to seamless day, night to blue, the moon..new to new. It's steady un'interrupted flowing makes her feel fated..and events, deterministic. She wonders, 'Have I been pre'ordained?..especially chosen for some purpose? Her pursuits of 'why' madden her cry. A mission, un'disclosed..a rank un'bestowed. She searches for urgent love, and hanging on to it at any cost, she is weighted heavy, Earth' bound, and lost
Upon the celestial path she has stepped..packed for another journey to begin, only to return, again and again. Is it sentiment, compliment?..or lack of self'content flush'faced with the sad'face of a ghostly stranger. The mortality, the morbidity of it. Is it the finality of it she needs to experience? She knows it's true, the husband'stranger..his love for her is loyal and blue. He loves her as he always has, as she allowed, as she was long ago. Between past and future, there is but little that overlaps. In this eternity, its tortuous strain, under its heavy forbearance, she would often collapse..inward, like the dark matter of an unborn fetal sun, ever building, all is arrayed..delicately woven, eternities of life await..oblivions in her midst, yet from each dreamless sleep she awakens with newly formed vision of what a larger world could be
The prime of her soul...what did it know so assuredly? Has it been just a place to stay, a chamber in which to incubate, a far'away shangrila in which to camp, watch, and wait? Is this what it has been all about? The prime of her life, love spent?..or just renting to pass the time..waiting for the right star to show, or waiting for her eyes to open and see a radiant glow that has been there all along. These things she ponders. Deep in oblivious sleep she naps. How can she know? she wonders..for love cannot be tested like assumptions, or proven like theorems
A chance to make..a happenstance taken..no longer can she wait, this eternity between past and future..for life, it is here and now, for its own sake. The celestial lover, the husband'stranger..one indeterminate, the other occult, both remote..with all that has opened, with all the beauty she sees..all the light a'new, all life around her radiantly arrayed..she feels it, and lives moment to moment
Her soul once long ago, needed a place to grow. It needed to be left alone, but then, past and future became darker without a dream catcher. She cannot any longer as before, when her soul was young and saged by her sensibilities, move and be moved by its turbulent shallows, and having conceded that love cannot be proved..only given and received..in the past, the shell of her pristine soul, lounges mornfully, wistfully, as he, her husband'stranger, ponders darkly on her fate without him, and she, awakened and appearing late, feels once again, the life force surging..her impending dream, urging
Yes..it is alive! The dream lives. She sleeps and dreams on. She moves and is heavily moved in the midst of her viscous eternity. In its midst too, by its own inherent current, its deep dark mystery, a thought or feeling flitters quickly upon its surface and swiftly skitters away into nothing. And all remaining, is the wait, and for the distant love from her celestial lover, never by giving or receiving as she has traditionally known, she waits too. A new current in her is stirring. It has awakened, her deep is moving. The prime of her earthly soul is coursing, flowing. By the stars she has learned to reckoned. By the constellations there, newly created, with new meaning, she is guided
All of what a human can be, she knew. It can be said that everyone knows this soon after and thereafter once born. A perfect love is simply as it were in the beginning...unconditional. In her very beginning, she knew love unconditional because of understanding, and she knows for unconditional love to live on, requires her understanding, but understanding first...herself. She knows this, and therein is the rub, the risk..each time, another part of her self newly apportioned whenever the prospect of a perfect love posed itself with a perfect stranger is, as before and as she will ever be, was wagered, as she were in its time, as she was so formed then, so fitted, so configured and dedicated to appeal and please
For love's sake, she took the risk. Each prospect for a perfect love..for only with such love can a celestial soul in its beginning and through the full course of life, fully incarnate and live. As unconditional love is, so the celestial soul lives. As unconditional love is not, so the celestial soul lives in part, and like the peeling of a pearl, from blemished surface to blemished surface, her life proceeded in search of that unblemished pearl'escent love
Each layer pealed, each face newly formed with such a beautiful aspiration glowing left less and less that could be divided. She is a gambler, a risk taker. And she gambles with the most precious for the highest possible stakes. Each wager of a portion of her life and soul is for that whole love, that it be returned. And she has ventured many times, and as many, lost the reach..each to each, and now, no more of herself can be waged. She is at her vital core, which cannot be apportioned and wagered any more
From what could be revealed and brought to light, to what remains, that indivisible core, that infinite un'dividable something with which, upon which, around which all forms and compounds...to wager it? or not
She searches for the burial sites..each face, each another fallout of youth's vainglorious pursuits. To resurrect each? and gather them together, and after apportioning her vital core, connect them all, and as the vital energy passes through them, she envisions, and looking into their sunken eyes..ask each to join hands, and with her intimately in their midst as one..to celebrate how joyous life has been?..its labidious raptures, all snacked, cupped, or plated and served by the inevitable darkness of what was to come next
Prospecting for unconditional love..how successful and uplifting can it be unless one is already un'divided? Yet each face, each self possessed in its time with courage and determination, and wagered for a passage back to paradise lost, is profoundly beautiful. This core of her which is left, the depth of soul that needs to be loved unconditionally, this indivisibility, has been watching all along..the love unrequited, the snake'haired Medusa turning, watching each beautiful offering become fixed into stone
Her first impulse insearching, was to use the vital life force of what remained to bring back to life what had turned to stone and long ago buried. And they surely can be un'earthed and resurrected..the succession, submissions of fatal assumptions made by each, altogether gathered into a collage collected, resembling something of what originally was vaingloriously divided. Yet, to do this, to un'earth each and bring to light each beauty, as she was feeling just before love's lost, would be to un'freeze each at the point of death and cause each to pass on to the moment next..dark despair watching Medusa turning. She knows that for all of her final wager, from lifeless beauteous stone, their sunken, lifeless orbs, and all together..all she could ask of them, is 'live on'
She wants to live..her celestial soul, for it to live ever on. She has wagered and lost all life long for the pearl of love..compromising ever more and more, never giving life a chance to reduce one's self to one vital, indivisible core
Her core, her celestial soul. The vital energy given to her in her beginning has been spent. No more wagered..nothing more lent. Only do or not do..action or inaction. She knows where they are all buried
Each exists with a beautiful aspiration for love. The beauty of each, frozen at the point of death. They can be uncovered and exposed to the light of day, out of reverence, out of respect for the wager, however hopeless the aspiration may have been, and beholding them with their stony stillness somehow living on their own, a beauty penetrating...would she then dedicate the rest of her..that they may again live on, that they incarnate, that they be resurrected..resurrect what would become past that moment of death with the last of life in them..and in the next moment, what would inevitably pass into dark despair as it would have then. Or would she pause from their beauty revealed?..a careful excavation, a loving polish applied, a'smoothing its pearly translucent, until its radiant luster becomes apparent. More and more distantly removed with each loving stroke..more and more an object to treasure, she would excavate and refine with all her vitality and skill. More and more revealed, each great expectation, each aspiration, out from its darkness, finds its environment, its relevance, and relationship to all
Each day the sun inevitably rises and casts its opalescence upon the pearl'escent surface of each face. It shines and its iridescent white casts deep, unfathomable shadows upon its form. Each, a marvel as its reverence for beauty of undivided love radiates..each a reverence and celebration of life..each in its own time, she knew to bury until no more of her self could be divided, when it is time to move on...when it is time to move on
In the moment she considers un'earthing her past in this manner, the deep of her ponders..pondered it all in an instant. She dwells in a peaceful environment, in a garden of her making, with her creatures..upon earthen ground, she ponders..deep in the Earth, could her faces and all their valiant beauty remain? Life having reduced her to her indivisible core, she ponders what was more...the valiant beauties buried, or the quest they were on
She has once thought of them, buried deep, each emotion..ugly and bad since each offering failed to bring paradise back. The undivided love and beauty could not be seen, and therefore did it radiate? And even radiating..could the offering be seen by anyone not looking for it? And all that is buried now..their beauty lives! in the same darkness that all beauty and love lives. In their dark they shine, out of their time, they know..and perhaps are needed there, and remain there for what is to come...for her wings to unfold and be carried by the wind, to see by the light of love..above, below, all around..to take to the sky where she always belonged, under a celestial heaven..where she was born