Laura's Theme

It was the last vestiges of a warm fall day, you know, just before long sleeves and woolen vests. A day that needed a walk in it, before breathing in the cold air that messaged the lungs it was time to hibernate. Slowly making my way down to the St. George River as high tide, brought whatever the Atlantic pushed in this morning. Staying free of the wet mud along the bank and side stepping those long wooden boxes that the clam people fashioned to hold their catch of the multi sized bivalve mollusks, dug up from the mudflats at low tide. Soon, like everything else, the cold and wind of winter would freeze, and the river take on the look of a quiet mirror, that only God could paint.

This day was special, and as I walked toward the train trestle running over the river, I felt a sense of calm, looking forward to observing the sunrise and sitting on my log to think to take in to enjoy to breath and to be. The sky broke red, and with thickening clouds, my mind’s camera focused on an apparition ten to twelve feet, across the tracks from me. I quickly rubbed my eyes, blinked twice, looked back to find this specter forming into the shape of a woman. She seemed about 5 feet high, and though she was standing facing me, her body shifted like it was a tornado, leaves flew about and tiny birds escaped her as if fleeing her ferocity. With her arms she strategically covered her topless body and long beautiful hair obscured her face.

I thought does she need help? What and who is this? Is she real? Am I dreaming? Did I fall and hit my head on train track? Without any notice I received a thought from her that I was OK, and she was too. As the sun become brighter, she pushed her hair aside and I beheld her beautiful face, dark expressive eyes and the kind of lips that fired my best dreams for years. She smiled slowly, and I was totally mesmerized still not believing what I was seeing. I managed to speak out and asked how are you here and why? She read my mind and the whirlwind around her became less agitated and she spoke. I am the one you see in your dreams, the one whom you have kissed a million times and stroked my hair and with your gentle touch gave everything of yourself to me, encouraging me, loving me. You talked to me when I needed, you held your tongue when I needed and you cared.

When she spoke, visions of what she said flowed through my mind, of every kiss or touch or connection I had ever experienced, and my body felt warm like a warm blanket in winter. For the moment, I felt swaddled in her crimson aura and more content than I’d been for years.

How many times, through those years, had I dreamed to have her with me. Life, as so often happens, got in the way. Jobs, moves, betrayal and ill health and as Gilda Radner often ranted, “it’s always something.”

The more I looked at her, the more I wanted to hear more but words between us had come to more of a telepathic exchange of intimate thoughts and desires better left to unfold in the ethereal.

In the distance, a strong whistle of the daily train, at least through October, headed to Rockland to pick up passengers for their return trip to Brunswick, Maine. I was trying to hold onto my dream for as long as possible and I stood up and crossed the tracks to embrace my crimson lover, but she rushed like a wind to me, pulling me off the tracks and falling down on top of me, she whispered, I came here to save you. As I squeezed her and opened my eyes, she was gone as quickly as she had appeared.

Happy but unhappy, I worked my way back toward my home. To write or to dream, what should I do. “Ah, now I don’t hardly know her, But I think I could love her, Crimson and clover.”