Epilogue

I don’t think it’s dark, just quiet. 

Or maybe not quiet, but more a pause that never recommences…the listening at the edge of sleep with the blankets pulled up and rain on the roof, or the soft susserance of snow drifting outside…

The presence of simply standing at the shore in the ceaseless wind, the ever tides. 

The kind of pause that falls after all the notes, the music still hanging in the air, the orchestra and audience alike reflecting on all the beauty they’ve just shared. 

The deep intimacy of holding your sleeping child after they have finally settled into your arms and are away to wherever dreams are spun. 

I mean to say that it’s not an end so much as a final equilibrium, the satisfaction of a well-deserved rest, a laying down of one’s backpack beside a fast, cold stream, the August sun eternally glinting off the water and the rocks, the brook trout, and the hellgrammites. 

I like to think of it that way, at least. I can’t really know, but I can imagine the times and the people I’ve loved being themselves reward enough. I don’t need any accolades, nor prizes, nor eternal choirs – please: I’ll gladly take the quiet, just the quiet, and hope that one day we can once again sit next to one another without need of words, without need of place or body or want, just to sit, satisfied, our jobs well done, our loves faithfully and fully completed.