The Moment

An old man sits, his long fingers wrapped around the cup of tea his wife has just refilled. It's warmth seeping into him, he begins to sway. In the distance a flute plays, a reed flute. Its thin high sound swirling, twirling, pulling him inward until he rises and follows the notes around and around. The skirt of his robes fly out wide and flat and he finds himself beyond time, beyond space, beyond that place where things were, or will be and moving into that place where I Am discards all worldly concerns. A place where fences no longer stand between man and man, or man and woman, or woman and woman. Where they do not even stand between a man and his soul. A place some call the center point and others do not have a name for.

Out beyond this place, in the world where mores rise like an obstacle course, keeping one soul from another because of things that do not even have a name in truth, stands an old woman. All around her stand others, but there is one far away, so far away his face is not even a blur. One who is drawn into this place that some do not have a name for.

Like two jackstraws caught up in the vortex of a dust devil, they are snatched up and spun around, whirling dervishes of love and soul whipped around like the chaff from grain and helpless to stop it. Until at last they reach the eye of this stormy world and settle into a stillness beyond all comprehension.

Here, in a field that bears no weight, stand, not a woman worn by time and a young Adonis, but two children. A girl, tall and slender, her eyes large and filled with love, her legs long and strong and her body not yet a harbinger of things to come. Beside her a boy, younger still, who clutches her hand, looking up at her with eyes both adoring and full of questions.

Where will she lead them? What arboreal bower will hold them in its arms? What rocky rills will they slip and slide in as their laughter echoes all around them?

She is the leader, the protector and he is a willing accomplice.

Joining hands, they too begin to spin, their bare toes digging in as around and around the flute trills bird notes and the light lifts them up and away. And the old man smiles, sinking down into a heap of white robes and spilt tea.