wildscape. literary journal

Beautiful
by Chila Woychik

Mornings, squirrels gather old hazelnuts or walnuts I toss away, and a Spring westerly sings along a swath of Midwestern acres of cornfields being seeded.

“Are you done being mad at me?” I ask my aging self. “Maybe it’s time to put it all on the table.”

We forget what it’s like to feel the warm earth beneath our feet. We forget what it’s like to see a hawk on the wing, a jay on the wire. We get used to the sun and the brash blue sky; we get used to living.

When my clothes were smaller and my hair was longer, when my face shone brighter than the morning’s sun, I skipped along the beaten paths, a child in wonder, Wonderland, the beauty of the day. But the years slid sliding toward a crack called Time, and somewhere Age grew teeth. It’s no secret that the truth changes things, and what is gone, is gone. But we’re all just boys and girls in wearing-out bodies, so make liars out of dream-snatchers, because everything is just plain beautiful beautiful beautiful.

Oh for fleetings of hush in days banging heavy with planets and stardust noising the world – for tickings clock-soundless and light-splinter quiet, a blackness bone silent to love in.

There are memories in photo albums, left behind. “See this one? Remember that one?” Time has vanished, and recollection is our daily companion. Oh my, don’t we have a date with Father Time, an unscripted tryst, a falling over feet in a dark room, the music loud, the partner strangely silent. About this date with Father Time … isn’t the sun this morning uncommonly beautiful? 

Please laugh, sweet sun; I dance this time with you. Old luck makes the best luck, and ancient stars are the most reliable.

about the author // Chila Woychik