The Grotto

If you're going for a walk with the one who fills your thoughts, pick a day when it will rain in the morning but clear up in the afternoon.

Why?

Because the moment the sun breaks out from the clouds, the moment when the two of you are sitting on a bed of moss, memorizing each other's eyes, worrying about the other's health, wanting the moment to last forever, even though you know you'll get tired of sitting in that position for too long, that moment is the only moment that matters.

Have you ever sat back against a rock and watched water drip from trees?

Have you ever held your lover's hand in yours and watched a palm-sized cup of liquid write secret messages down each other's arms?

Have you ever lost track of time, not as the Earth spins round but as the watch displays, one with the one with you in the moment?

Don't look for words. Don't listen for songs. Let the moment be. Put aside your fears. The past and the future do not exist. You and the one with you are the universe. Timeless.

We are social beings. The spherical puzzle that is an individual is only completed when one finds another and puts the missing pieces together, erasing history, blotting out time, civilization and culture just a myth no longer perpetuated in your thoughts.

We fall asleep in each other's arms, the sun our blanket, the rock our pillow, the moss our mattress.

Time will find us, society will catch up with us. Later. Not now. Some other time. We're happily lost.

A butterfly tickles your nose. We both wake up with a sigh. We are not we. We are one. Two vines twisted together, reaching for the sky. Two trees leaning on each other in the forest. Two rocks locked together for eternity.

A hawk's shadow passes overhead, telling us the sun has moved a fourth of the way across the sky. Late afternoon. Time calls our names. We feel the magnetic pull of our species.

We wrap up this moment in a special box, hidden from view, stored in our thoughts, our bodies the keys and the lock. We'll have other moments but not this one. This moment no longer belongs to us. This moment calls the woods home, the insects the caretakers, the trees the walls, the sky the roof. Unaware of time, living in cycles.