cabrillo

I meet the fellow on the way from here to then. I know it is best that he fails to recognize me, however it hurts a little when this occurs. The greatest shock is when a conversation starts between us two strangers. I don’t know who speaks first, but my haunted look probably initiates the pleasantries. Our uncanny kinship brings us both into deeper conversational waters than we can tread.

I play to his ignorance, dancing in the fear of discovery. But soon my questions become a herd directed through the gates of time. Memory coalesces into answers he can’t give. He assembles words that frustrate him in their impotence. And I know this boy who pretends to be a man. 

With a tremble he shares a broken tale. Expectation seizes him as he awaits my reply. And I break his heart when I give false praise. But for me it is a dead thing that haunts me in resurrection.

This child fears the wrong things in his beauty. I want to warn him of the real monsters. But he has to break in the proper hands. It is his hopes that crush me. The songs in his step are a pied piper. They prance him along cliffs and briar. He has stumbled often already but I can see his future abrasions. 

I lose the words of his voice as my mind wanders the years. My eyes watch the scarless hands weave a word. They cut the air in expression. And I forecast their toil. I find them incapacitated tomorrow. 

Then my mind wends selfish, and I wonder what he sees. Perhaps a prescience keeps him from inquiry. Does he know? I know this is not what he wants. I know it in my bones. But would he be proud to follow the phantom’s steps?

The question I can never ask breaks my mask: I excuse myself before my emotion unwraps itself before my stranger. I take hurried limping steps without looking back. I add a cut to him in the confusion of his fellowship. But I must flee.

I find myself wandering in stilted steps. I am far afield. I fight the battle of this question. I pretend to know the lad but his answer scares me. I feel a promised shame in the mystery. 

But I remember the hope in his eyes. Battered and bruised, a smile slants his starboard. I hear his laugh in tears. I remember the dead stories reborn into new. I know the love crafted into him by the wind. Deserts ache with beauty that some struggle to see. 

And I realize his answer is mine.