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She Come. She Go. She Came. She Went.

By Bruce D. Gormley

circa 1973

Scene Looking at Same Farm House

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She Came, She Go

Throughout Vermont on this morning,

the alarms –

bells, buzzers, beeps sounded their call in tens of thousands of homes.

Warm feet hit the frigid floor

Babies cried. Children screamed.

Legs swung to the floor and everyone sat still for a while.

Then

Yawns…. Hugs…. sharp yelling words….Laughter…. gentle talk.

Eyes looked out to check the weather

Some paused and took a second look at the sky.

Hands hurried to pull on clothes and fasten for the rain or sun.

Water steamed through coffee and the smell soothed the senses

And made people hungry for toast, eggs and bacon.

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Children scurried and animals watched and waited for their food.

Hats, scarves, coat, gloves, mittens

Kisses goodbye. See you later.

Today I got up and sat at the edge of my bed for too long.

I felt alone.

It was too quiet.

I wanted to make breakfast for more than just me.

I wanted to talk to someone about the weather,

about the news,

about the aurora borealis I saw last week -

about anything.

I was hungry not-for-breakfast-alone;

I was thinking of you.

I looked down the long dirt driveway

lined by aged faithful maples

forming a tunnel that cuts through the fields.

The fog hung on the land still.

The farm was backlit by the rising sun,

Making the trees glow dark

red, then pink, then pink-

yellow.

I looked out the front window and waited

for your wonderfully-wispy figure to appear,

walking as you always do when you

come to me -
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slowly (or is it idly or cautiously?)

On this particular day I envisioned you

in a country girl dress with pleats that fluttered in the breeze.

That Day You Came

From no where today.

You seemed to drop out of the sky today.

Silently you walked to me

with a slow smile.

Today

You appeared as a tiny distant doting indistinct dot,

far down the driveway.

I….squinting…..

Then soon I knew it was you by the way you walked

slowly and smoothly although stopping now and then

then seemingly gliding in soft angel steps inches off the ground.

Now and then you gazed upward at the maple branches

and looked off toward the fields and the five mountains one beyond the other

as though curious and wondering where

(and perhaps why) you were there.

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I thought I saw you hesitate once or twice

You even turned around to face

the space from whence you came…

Then to my appreciation

you then walked on a little swifter

to me

closer and closer.

Today you appeared

just when I thought

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I had almost forgotten you. …

and just when I thought you

had forgotten me for sure.

You appeared though my hopes were

shrouded like ancient women at a funeral.

You were dead and arose again .

You were a mere flash of my mind

granted (again) flesh and warmth and breath

and warm skin for me to perhaps touch…

yielding lips to kiss and a quiet voice

to repair my fragile

crystalline mind.

That morning was unusually warm for early spring.

A fog drifted idly in a ribbon

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along the insistent and persistent ice of the snow feed stream.

The fog formed a misty line,

looking as if drawn in oils by

the talented dabbing hand of a master artist.

The stream strayed off as far as I could see

and then out of sight

where it cut between two gray hills

with trees that had only the adolescent stubble of tiny leaves.
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In the valleys where the sun hardly shines

The snow melted unceremoniously

in the changing-to pink-to-yellow-to-white-light-blue-sky -

intensifying sunlight.

You walked over the wet grass

into the middle of the front yard

and stood stationary as if lost in thought,

perhaps unsure

but driven to me by some primordial instinct .

I held my breath.

“Come to me,” I whispered to your image

I could hear the dripping of dew

from the naked-warming-slowly branches in the back wood lot.

“The trees are laughing because the snow is gone,” I thought ,

Their sleep is over.

Spring rain has awakened them

And their tiny buds aim skyward and absorb the sun

Soon they will spread as an eager maiden

And receive the sun light and warmth

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And their tiny buds aim skyward and absorb the sun

“Come to me,” I urged I a whisper.

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I moved my lips to make those words but am not sure if

I actually spoke the words.

No one morns the passing of the snow.

It’s here for a while and then it goes away

for long hot seasons.

It is loved at first, then taken for granted

until one gets tired of it.

But now even in April, it might snow tomorrow.

In Vermont, no one is ever sure of

a particular snowfall being the last of the year -

until perhaps July.

No bells echo down the valley

for the funeral of that cold glistening whiteness.

There are no final funerals for snow -

No closure. No condolences. No tears.

No fragrant bouquets

to soothe the senses.

I thought - you come and go,

go and come like snow

but without the regularity of seasons.

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When you go away, you blanket the world

And take the colors with you

And make the world black, white and gray.

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I stood in the window watching you come to me

And you –

Your weather is New England’s.

You have your seasons but without the comfortable reliability.

And you come as in the infancy of spring

You have not forgotten how to be reincarnated

For too long you hide from me like a child.

Then something happens to you…

And you come home.

(Then perhaps the nor’easters of your soul spin for a while

in some deep cold part of your mind

that will not be warmed and tamed)

and

you go away, perhaps forever…

I never know if it will be weeks, months or years

or forever.

Sometimes I feel I am a immobile rough hewn statue

Of jagged ice

and you come to me

with gracious and creative warm hands

and you smooth away my sharp edges.

You sculpt me into a masterpiece.

That is how you make me feel.

You are a fine artist with most talented hands.

It is strange how you go away,

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then appear like dawn at midnight

and give yourself so completely to me

as before

- in time too far away -

Then you leave

To a place with no address.

When I kiss you, I remember and always say to myself

With silent suppressed surprised delight, -

Yes, that's how your kissing was.

Not quite as I tried yesterday to remember it.

Oh better, much better.¶

You are softer than rainbow rain,

warmer than the feeling of down quilts thrown over me

on February nights at two o’clock by someone who loves me.

Each time together is the first time

so it seems.

but the last time

perhaps.

I take off your clothes like a child unwrapping a present,

but slowly, gently.

And you watch me

Fascinated

like a giver pleased to give.

I love you.

We never did just take our clothes off

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and jump into bed.

I would kiss you

and you would sigh like you were never before kissed.

I always touched you everywhere

In all your hidden places

until clothes got in the way.

Slowly - always we undressed each other

tossing clothes out of the way

like children laughing at silly inhibitions.

Often, naked we would dance slowly .

Often we both were very aware that we drifted

back in time to enchanted teenage places

when love was brand new

and startling.

"Do you remember..." you would ask

like you were saying a prayer," ...the time we went to

Nauset Light beach on the Cape in the storm?"

(Of course, I remembered everything

of that occasion so I said)

"And we defied the lightning

and walked the beach at the edge of the breakers."

We felt fearlessly immortal.

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We felt like together-forever-summer

As constant and powerful as the waves

that rolled with delight

upon finding at last warm sand.

Without breaking the melodic cadence

of the incantation you continued,

"And then the warm rain fell.

You said it was our baptism."

I said

“Remember how it washed away the sand and salt water mist

and we licked the rain from each other’s bodies."

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(I do remember thinking that I was glad of the rain

and the salty spray,

because there was no way

you could tell my tears from the raindrops. )

because….

Underneath it all, deeply inside, even then

some part of me was saying that autumn

followed the eternal summer.

Then and there in that summer - In my mind I was seeing that beach

as it would appear to me alone in winter --

sand covered by snow made sloppy by salt spray.

Into my farm house you came

straight into my arms without a word.

Today in a misty dream where nothing existed but us.

We lost track of time.

We were not anyplace here or there or then or now

but every-place where we had been before

That's what we do to each other still.

Your breasts are always softer to touch

after months or years of neglect.

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(When you are gone, I unfold and touch the petals of

fragile flowers

in your honor.)

My eyes always dwell on your gently stark shapes.

Sometimes (I can't help it) I find myself

memorizing, staring

at your eyes, your nose, your lips, your arms and legs, your breasts -- I stare at….

every curve and contour of your here-now body

because I know you will go away again ...

perhaps this time forever.

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Countless times in bed alone,

I try to remember how it was

that your wispy fingers teased me.

I try to picture your lips

when I bend to kiss you.

I can always fleetingly see your face

but just as I am about to

recreate you in my imagination,

your image stuns me like… just as if …

I woke up and….

The dream is broken

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How can I explain?

It was like one day in winter …

I stood on the snow covered upper pasture

on a frigid winter afternoon - 4:30 and already getting dark.

I stared out over the curved meadows

that sloped to the frozen stream…

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Everything was indistinct in dull grayness…

And then abruptly the sun shined through a break in the clouds.

It felt like a sudden warmness was about

to caress my back like your hands.

There was clarity for a moment

but then my eyes were blinded by the intensity…

I squinted against the brilliance but then…

Black clouds slid in closing the crack in the dome of dusk and ..

the light was gone.

That is our story.

(Light-Dark

Hot-Cold

Begin-End
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And too much time in between.)

Sometimes the light melts the images

in my imagination.

I struggle to keep images

and I try to kiss you,

and am disappointed you are not there.

Yes, sometimes in dreams, I hold you closely and you are there.

I am about to kiss you and then damn it

I wake up and try

desperately to return to the dream.

I curse the noise

that woke me up.

I curse the sun and its interfering light.

I try to recall the dream, to go back,

but it is gone.

Every detail, every feeling that I can’t

remember torments me.

I struggle to remember some little detail,

something to lead me back.

But no, I am grasping at rays of light.

Dulls and makes the details fuzzy

Rain falls on the water color masterpiece

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that my mind is in the midst of painting.

And
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helpless I watch -

I cannot stop the November fog and rain.

Each time you come,

I think I will forever-remember every movement

of your hips, your tongue,

your talented hands ...

How could such wonders be forgotten?

But each day drops another cold veil

Of more opaque snow across your face.

When you arrive, suddenly you are not just a memory anymore
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though I know you will go away again

and become a memory again.

Each time you come, your kiss-anew

provides me with months

of now and then new fresh memories to create -

Spontaneous flashbacks now and then to enjoy.

Yes - for memories, I don’t have to

dig so deep, but

How the dark big-ole-cold winter months-especially

dull and fuzzy up the details.

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Sometimes, I look out the window and remember

the successive frosts of Autumn

that cover my green lawn with layers of leaves.

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The red maples are the last to go

and their broad warped leaves cover all.

treasuries
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Naked branches let the sun shine on me

and I should be warm

but earlier and earlier in the afternoon

the sun casts long cold shadows –

cold fingers that touch your back and make you shiver

Yes, and the nights are darker and last fifteen

hours.

It is a longer night when you are alone.

When You come,

I say “I'll write it down,.

I’ll write down all the details of our love-making

and everything we said that made us laugh together,

but I never do.

Words are trees that lose their leaves

when the cold freezes only the sap

that hesitates to hide in the frigid ground.

Words are bodies dead on arrival,

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Yes this is the same tree

from a different

perspective……like all

your perspectives
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or worse words are skeletons of what used to be

They mock the sacred memory of the once-beautiful moments.

Words are too gross to express the sacred.

I have no photos of you.

“I'll take your picture,” I say to myself sometimes

but you won’t let me.

It always has to be enough that you are there.

The only picture I have of you is your yearbook picture

And the picture that appears and disappears spontaneously

as a flash in my mind,

I never know when and why I suddenly think of you

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But it is often and sometimes I think

Always

Always you are there wherever I am.

I torment myself wondering…..

Do you think our time together is a treasure

to be taken out and appreciated only once in a while?

Do you think our love would not be so valuable

if we spent it wantonly for a long period of time?

Do you think the romance would burn and consume itself

if we let it be wild?

How could you think I would tire of you,

tire of hugging and kissing you?

In darker moments though,

I fear you are right.

God forbid that kissing you would become routine.

It is everything but routine.

But the cost of loneliness and wanting is high.

Once out of the clear blue

I asked you why you come to me

And you said,

"Because I ... Because you ...."

and then you stopped speaking

and stilled my mouth with kisses

that I did not want to question.

I do not question kisses.

“And why do you go away,” I ask.

You never explain and I do not understand.

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Sometimes I even entertain the thought that

you will come and stay forever

but something in me remembers

that your shoes are always by the door,

and when a certain time comes,

I wake up and the shoes are gone

You have left at times even in the midst of blizzards

leaving brief footprints on the path to the road

and on my mind.

When it's time to go,

you're gone.

You always seem to walk faster when you leave

and your steps are heavy and deliberate.

I have watched you leaving.

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You always look back ...

So far, you always look back,

but someday you might not.

I never know.

On early November New England Sundays,

I sit before the window

and watch the snow slowly cover the still green fields.

Slowly the distinct edges of the stone walls

are rounded off in blurry wind curved strokes

...and the descending sun colors the landscape

in all colors from yellow to pink, then

black, gray and white.

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I want to see your image emerging from the falling snow.

And I await your return

clinging more and more to the last smooth images

of your magic body that is like

no-other-distinct-stark-nakedness.

I try to imagine what it was like when you came,

what it will be like -

if you ever come again.

If you ever come and go again….

Dancing to me with wanton whimsy

making footprints brief-just-as-spring

in and out of the wildly flowering fields of my soul.

I think of death -

Someday I will not be there.

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There will be no answer when you knock on the door.

Or someday you will not come.

It may not always be so….

So be it…..

If it must be

And it must.
(No choice)

Just so long

And long enough.