Scent of the morning
(Cinderella in the wind)
She turned, backlit, then:
“People survive things,” then:
“It’s good to forget.
It’s good to have space.
It’s good to sleep.
It’s in the spaces, in between, that we find love.
There does not need
always to be something more with you.
Do I have to explain it?”
Then:
She was interested in all of him,
Not just the parts,
He was right for awhile, and then he was wrong.
Then, once again, he was right.
Finally, wrong.
Never finally.
Hannah knew
she had been right all along,
was always right, and would always be right,
and never left,
uneasy with persuasion, no art:
“In everything one must consider the ending,”
she recalled, without saying,
not remembering if she had told him,
Or he, her,
loving all of him was a beginning.
Teel blue eyes first, a large gray one
Danced to the water’s edge,
watching him
then head shifting left,
Right,
listening, for the others, never left,
resisting running, no words forming,
knowing she was tired of fleeing.
Nose in the air, she rolled on her back,
scratching herself on the piled pebbles,
at stream’s edge,
she waited, paws facing the sky,
only tummy rubs
on her mind.
“Hello Cinderella,
where’s Nachson and Dooley?”
knowing they could not be far,
in the wind.
They were one.
©Philippe du Col, 2025, Duchess of Orange 🍊© 2025
