Crossing The Line

from: Songs of Open Spaces and from Remote Places

I held her hand when she died that night,

She crossed from the gray twilight

to the new dawn of a pale daylight.

There was peace in the valley…

            but thunder in the mountains.

1. Wild horses danced in silhouette on the ridge,

while the white streams of ‘89 tumbled like memories

            down the ravines of spent time.

Brook trout scattered like jewels chasing flies racing in the riffles -

At the bottom pool, I laid out a last cast to you -

            the line gently floating down, landing silently -

You held out your hand, the last time,

            to help me cross that line.

2.You held my hand when you fell that day.

   Long ago on the hot pavement of our hometown’s main street.

In the summer of my childhood, you fainted from the pain and the heat.

My little grasp slipped away,

There was noise and traffic in the streets,

but help in other’s hands and feet –

      They took over assuring me all was fine.

      I cried hard, fearing you had gone --

                        and crossed that line.

3. 34 years later almost to the day,

   In a sullen rhythm of August heat,

I had my first taste of death.

I scraped the body of my pet from off the street

      of a small southern town;

I was down - down a long corridor of pain,

Raging at society’s four wheeled killing machines - That could take apart a lonely man’s dreams -

He crossed from his stonewall perch,

      through traffic; suddenly a lurch -

Thrown into a soft gray light,

He came back to find something wasn’t quite right --

      That evening in the pale twilight,

      There was peace in the valley,

      but lightning on the horizon.

And swallows dipped in silhouette against a fading glow. (Passed the evening star)

      And the walks we took together,

      down the valley trail to the pond-

Or where the wind-bent trees lead to the bare spot, where I first fed you to keep you,

      from ‘Crossing the Line’.

4.  You’re an old woman, but I see you young

     Standing at the dock by the bay.

Fresh in dreams of your life and family unfolding, And I’m holding 

(holding desperately) -

   thanking you for every minute of every day.

And in the pale dawn of a new daylight,

A dove flew in silhouette across the gray twilight.

Somewhere, a horse neighed softly.

My trout will rise to sip quietly,

      a morning dun or two.

And then it was through:

I laid out my last cast across the pool,

The line gently floating down...

And You held out your hand the last time,

To help me ‘cross that line’....

      There was peace in the valley,

            but thunder in the mountains.

For my mother: Beatrice L’cluse Guy, b.June 7, 1917, d.April 22, 2005

   And a good pet, Iggy now long gone.

I sprinkled both of your ashes in the stream under Greenbanks Hollow bridge: Whenever I fish the backcountry of Vermont you’ll forever be in my heart

c. 2005-2007 michael a. guy, all rights reserved