When two people fight, it's the air between them when they're done. It's the awkwardness in the way they can't look at each other, the stiffness in their stubborn, stubborn shoulders. Hours later, when they still haven't forgotten, it's the words that were said to hide how much other words hurt.
It's not the sky when it rains; it's the clouds as they come from chimneys and steel-plated monstrosities, hiding the rain as they spread across blue.
In the cemetery, it isn't the unadorned stone, but the one wreathed in flowers and not people. Be they roses or tulips or mayflowers, be they white or black or crimson. It's not when people's faces are stained with tears, but when children play and their parents yawn discreetly into their palms. It's when there is no grief, when the dead are carted away with relief.
When the sea is the color of steel, that is not it. It's when barks cross and break apart, spilling the poison men keep in their pockets into the waves. As the porpoises scream, and the sharks fear, and the whales weep, Njord mourns how his home fades. He is the God of the seas, and even he cannot fight so hard, for so long. It's the helplessness that churns in his heart.
When a baby has the eyes of a crone, it is the color of her cheeks.
It follows despair. It is accepting, resigned. It's not the burst of emotion, but the emptiness after.
It's the smoke after the fire has burnt out, the ashes when the embers are spent.
That is what Gray is.
No comments:
Post a Comment