…because life is persistent

You think it’s an illusion; that the glimmered mirage reflected in watery eyes doesn’t dip past the surface, but the rocks you skip aren’t meant to sink.  They skim in rippled jumps each barely tapping the water as it reaches for the other shore. Exhausted from the journey, they succumb to the pull and sink. Before you watch them disappear beneath the waves, another rock is hand ready and held tight. 

            The breeze carries a message through a flowing curtain of willows. They weep for a world-weary heart hardened by time and a touch of life. Desperate to catch your eye, the branches wave frantically, whipping just above your head. When the rustle grows, you glance in annoyance cursing the disruption. The branches, drained from the effort, release the call to let it settle back along the wind.  But life is persistent; it turns to the nightingale, hoping that the sun-brushed melody melts past the iced prison walls surrounding your heart.

            There he sings, on the water’s edge, fighting past cellophane wings to catch your ear.  His little heart beats a foreign rhythm of love.  The song drifts past an unwilling soul wrapped comfortably in its loneliness.  As he prepares to expend his final breath, you turn to throw another stone and stir the water with a splash.  Off he flies in search of new ears to capture.  If you were to pause, the absence would be glaring, but the urge to continue skipping overwhelms the senses. So you throw another stone, hoping this one will make it to the other side.

The frustration builds as each one falls faster beneath the deep cerulean waters than the last.  Realization has yet to take hold, but life is persistent. It compels the lazy clouds to gather. As the sky woven blanket begins to cry, you feel the first drop roll across your cheek. You brush it away without a thought. The first drip safely in hand, you return to task; scowling at the heavens, you warn them in brief sharp glances.

A laugh rumbles across the hills. It grows to a deafening echo in your ears.  Undeterred, the sky opens; in typed drips on the water’s surface, it faithfully sends the message of love. As it soaks, you feel the warmth dip past the skin. Your face turns skyward letting each word roll down rose touched cheeks. It continues to flow as your hands release the stones into the moss covered soil below; finally the words pool right below the neck, through brittled walls, into that space emptied by loneliness.

…because life is persistent and all it needs is time.