High Flight

Dedication: For Camille, Hannah and Chloe.

~*~

Satine twirled across a glimmering, silvery cloud, feeling her midnight skirt swirl around her as she floated, light as air and free as a dove that flies away, guided by the bleeding rays of a cerise dawn.

The velvet sky was close enough to touch. Had she extended an alabaster hand towards the dome, twinkling stars would have nestled in her palms, rather than glistening tendrils of sunrise.

She watched as Christian let his beautiful song immerse her in a new found splendour, heightened by the haze of deep azure and soft silver that smothered the sky with a radiant sheen.

"Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth, and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings," Satine whispered as she felt herself being lifted from the pewter cloud and into Christian's arms. Her auburn curls caressed her cheeks as a smile lit up her face.

"Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth, of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things…" She sighed wistfully. If only she could stay here in his arms until dew blanketed the courtyard and then sun showed its golden visage.

"You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung, high in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there, I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air." She smiled, reminiscing the times when she'd let her misery and pain flood into the inky sky. Now, she had a new reason to raise her voice to the heavens: joy.

She turned to Christian, running gentle fingers across his cheek. Her heart swelled at the sight of his nervous smile. He was so darling…

"Up, up the long delirious, burning blue," Christian whispered, tenderly tousling one of Satine's crimson curls. "I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace."

Satine nodded, delighted by his passionate words. "Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod…"

They paused for a moment. Neither breathed. They only stared into one another's eyes.

Blue against blue; hers filled with stardust and tears, his imbued with fervency and trust.

"The high untresspassed sanctity of space," they whispered softly, in perfect unison. "Put out my hand, and touched the face of God."

~*~

"High Flight" is a sonnet written by John Gillespie Magee, Jr. I wish I could claim ownership of such brilliance.
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