The Watcher and the Harbinger ©

She watches.

Pieces fall and fit together
like aubergine puzzles of ash.

She cries as she watches.

One steps on an IED.
One steps in front of a car.
One fails to step from the path of a bullet.
Another talks to someone she should not.
A twenty dollar bill drops unknown from the birthday boy's pocket.
The man looks at a woman who is not his own.
Daughter stands at a window wondering where Daddy has gone.
This one lights a match beneath a cotton curtain.
That one teeters at the top of stairs before falling…falling.

Sometimes it is too much for her.
She turns her eyes to the tree tops,
where wind whispers leaves like raven wings
against a cloudless sky.
She breathes deeply the nectar of damp night shrouded in fog
or smooths the new down of a spring maple leaf.
She watches the tense brow of a lover or his certain freckle here or there.
It is only wonderment that assuages her tears.

He now steps loudly.
Heralds the breath of tomorrow.
His smile and charisma like warmed and oiled stones on the curve of a back,
relaxes, teases into complacency that it is just another day,
as plain as damp towels hanging from a wooden rack.
He wears no warning black and hooded cloak.
He carries no warning scythe…
and walks, shoulders squared under the white, blinding sun of morning,
as calm as chicory waving by the path.
Heralds the future from his gayest eyes; bright, amazing, comfort smile.
He does not cry.
He heralds a destroyed heart, the moving of what is into what was.
Listeners feel like glued parts being ripped from within and tossed to the raging wind.
He does not cry.
He heralds the birth of a new born baby.
He heralds the return of the lover
with as much ease as the death of the father,
or destruction of a building as old as time.

The watcher takes the harbinger's head to her lap and there smooths his brow.

"Oh one, dear one" she coos, "Will you but bring joy this day to me?" Would you give me this day to dry my tears?"

He takes her gentle hand within his hardened one and responds, "Ah, loved one, I am not the maker of all things. I speak only of what has come to pass and cannot dry your tears by silencing all that does transpire. I will dry your tears with my faithful love and provide my shoulder as a place to lay your head upon when you grow weary of your task."

"It is our lot, I suspect, that I see and you tell,” she says.
"Indeed, it is our lot," he said, "but that we do it in companionship is a grace."

The watcher and the harbinger looked into each others eyes…..
Therein, her watch unfinished, she viewed his imminent demise.

Hard Stop