SOLSTICE
She used to tell me that whenever the sun sets, tomorrow is born.
The sun comes down low beneath the horizon, splitting and shattering the light into a thousand colours, and the air puffs out a last, tiny breath of warmth. Everything becomes still, and fiery, and joyous-in-potential and then-
-Then, night begins to steal out, covering the sky with her mocking-bird black coat, and tomorrow begins to quicken in its sleep.
The land breathes softly and deeply, shudders gently in reassuring measure, like the steps of a dance. The breeze blows softly through the Kansas sky (and that's where the stars are brightest, no matter what the science books say) and Tomorrow begins to stretch, just a tiny bit. It's not a violent awakening: its muscles murmur and stir, gentle as the rain. They stretch outward to embrace, not to destroy. The earth beneath and the sky above all love Tomorrow, and when I watch this, I wonder how I was once ever scared of it. Of her.
She stirs in her sleep, Tomorrow, waiting, waiting, waiting. Ready to be born again, forever new and growing. Skin and hands and a soul as healing as the rain. Forever filled with this potential, that is her birthright, the marrow in her bones and the pulse of her heart. I watch over her, as she once watched over me, and wonder how I could ever have lived my life without this.
Without Tomorrow.
And I tried. Oh, how I tried.
I chased after other versions of her. We both did. I watched her warm them in her bed and her heart, and never thought to wonder why they wouldn't fit. I even thought to forsake Tomorrow, but I hadn't the mettle for it. I'll battle and I'll fight: for tomorrow, for righteousness, for the truth. Because while tomorrow lasts, a new truth can be born every day: that's the miracle of her existence. I used to believe I was made for war and conquest; used to believe that they were my gift and my lot, the only things my hands could bring to pass. But that was before I knew her. Before I accepted the joyousness of a world in which Tomorrow is always immanent, and possibilities are always boundless. She taught me that the consequences of having hope were always worth the cost, no matter how they made your heart ache. She taught me to never give up on Tomorrow, because even when the sun rises over an outcome you don't want, the next day it may rise over an outcome you need. And Tomorrow is always growing, always changing, and ever-yet-the-same.
She stayed with another, loved him and warmed him. I watched them raise a child, and did my share, so sure that Tomorrow was no longer mine to hope for. And when I thought I was in that last gasp of daylight's warmth before the night fell, she came to me with her tomorrows. Immanent, Tomorrow is always immanent, just about to wake, she told me. And now she could finally wake with me. I didn't fight it, didn't fight her. Too tired of trying to fit Tomorrow inside a box I could lock down tight that I finally gave in to its potential. Finally accepted its gift for transformation, and was silent. At peace. At rest, like Tomorrow is before the sun comes up again.
Her hair is white now, not grey. She looks like snow, and blooms like spring, as lovely as the day I met her. Her hands are like rivers now, creased and soft and freckled with life, the veins as blue as sea-water. Her face shows its years, and its worries, and all the triumphs of a life lived to Tomorrow's full potential. She is magnificent, and lovely, and gentle, and humming-bird-fierce still. Sometimes people even mistake me for her son, despite the flecks of white that dust my hair, and she laughs. But then they look at us, and even those without the wit to see a Man not of this world seem to understand that we are right together. That we fit, as night and day and morning make the world. And Tomorrow curls in my arms and is content, where once I thought we neither of us could be.
So yes, she has changed as I have. And yes, we may yet bring transformation on each other still. Maybe the child we raised together will have another that she will live to see, a child she can explain the world to once again. I don't know. It is the price of being from another place, where the damp, living earth holds no sway, that I may keep my shape and breath for far longer than she can. We breath in time, Tomorrow and I, despite the stars' light distance between us, but it will not always be this way. Her nature is transformation, and another transformation comes soon, I know it will. And when it comes, it will seem as if the sun has died for me, and darkness has come to all.
But then I will hear her, whispering in my head, in my heart. And I will remember who and what she was, and what her nature is. And then I will come to this barn, and sit on this roof, and remember her curled beside me, head on my shoulder as it is now. And I will thank the universe that I knew her, and watch the sun set, and know that she is borne through heat and light with me.
Ever-living and lovely.
Ever-changing and ever-yet-the-same.
Because whenever the sun sets, I will remember her, and Tomorrow will be born again.
A/N Just a little idea i had that wouldn't go away. hope you enjoyed it.