Monday, November 14, 2016

Augustine: The man, his cliff, and a storm.

Athena,

I woke up early this morning. I've been going to bed early so it happens. I woke to an image held in my mind of a man standing on the edge of a cliff. It looked like the cliffs we've dreamed of seeing in Scotland or Ireland. Tall and sheer, they are covered in green grass that bends with the wind coming off of the ocean. He stood there; unmoving. Not frozen like a statue or stoic like a hero. It was nothing majestic because he stood there in a one piece, canvas pajama. He was absent and there was nothing to move him. The wild air whipping through his long white hair, he looked, without seeing, on a ravaging sea.

I stared at him in those moments between waking and sleeping. In late autumn, it seems the sun argues with the morning and is unwilling to rise. I watched him, during this time when the day is reluctant. I lingered on this image, willing myself to see every detail. I labored at the advice of Anne Lamott to see the Polaroid and put words to the moment it held. I held up words like swatches of paint to a wall, evaluating whether they matched. I thought of this moment, looking at the man standing in pajamas on a cliff while a storm grew in fury, and I thought how I would speak of it when I was awake. I knew this moment would come today - when I would sit down to write it - and that I would have forgotten the words I held for the man, his cliff, and a storm.

+Augustine

1 comment:

  1. Fuck, Augustine, that's beautiful.

    [In this case, I loved it so much that only strong language could convey the depths of my appreciation. <3]

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