A Place to Share

Millennium
At twilight she comes so softly, silently from the sea…
Clothed in satin slippers and flowing gown of milky silver-gray chiffon.
Slowly, seductively, she wraps her arms about his limbs and trunk…
He who has stood so tall, so stately, so regally
For a thousand years, perhaps for two..

The giant shivers….smothered by her tender kiss.
She brings her gift from the sea, life-sustaining moisture to his eager lips.
They dance the night away in each other’s arms…
To music from deep within the forest, the wind, the sea,
And a lonesome, old, foggy horn.

Like old lovers they remember the good times…. and the bad.
He recalls the tremors, quaking, uprising and down falling of
The earth’s plates ever seeking their Pangean form,
Volcanoes, lightening, fire, and bitter sting of the woodsman’s ax.

She recalls great storms at sea, ships lost, wailing and tears from the shore.
The most turbulent storm of all in the ocean depths - made by man from atoms.
The fluorescent nuclear particles, chemicals of carnelian, cerise, chartreuse,
And glistening black slicks of oil floating on the pathway she must travel.

Their embracing dance continues throughout the moonlit night.
Remembrances of other silvery nights, stars and star-like things,
Clear salt air, breaching whales, seagulls in aerodynamic dives, Osprey, eagles and hooty owls.
Clouds, rainbows, endless azure blue, and the mighty Pacific’s roar.

The first rays of sunlight filter through the trees from the East.
She must leave. He tenderly places a redwood orchid in her hair.
Hastily she departs, leaving scattered diamonds from her broken tiara
In his longing arms. He weeps, dropping the jewels onto the forest floor.

They are survivors - the silver lace fog and the mighty redwood -
Eagerly awaiting sunset, evening star, moonbeams and reunion, Enfolded in their eternal embrace.
Slow dancing the night away. Or to a scintillating new dance,
The dance of another New Millennium - Together.

Dorcas Glidewell
Year’s End - 1999