Falls

Rumbles swelled in his ears, pulsating against his chest as he approached; a subtle blade, nicking against the low din of twilight. The figure trim, athletic. Stripped of infancy, and any shades of adolescence; too definite and robust to be marked by age yet. Divine hands kept him beautiful, careful and apt they etched and sculpted. A refined profile caught the sun, its’ curvatures borrowing celestial gold to his cheeks, glossing his eyes and lids: setting the soot into fineries worthy of emperors and kings. His neck arched, and his ears stood erect as he basked in the glowering air.

Perse shades fell between newly budding leaves and drenched the snow that desperately clung to the falls’ provincial estate. He stood—aimless, unabated, and in thought. His mind sought out into the chapters he had so dearly wished to burn away; to set a match against the worn and broken pages. Her name flung behind each happenstance; her face whispered in every peripheral. Their children reached and plucked, wiling him to consider returning, goading to flee another sorry start. He knew there was another on the Islands, he felt her presence though had yet to seek his sister out. She would bring too many reminders, he thought.

She carried with her the ghosts of what he had lost, and what he continued to grieve. She carried his wife’s name in her heart as much as he had, and he knew he had always been too selfish to share in the mourning of her. He watched the falls tumble across stone and moss; watched as each strand of silver captured the suns golden floss in it’s tangles; watched as the pool at it’s footing ruptured and gargled, frothing in a gyre of trapped starlight and tears.