Each day, a cold wind passes, an hour or so before sunset. I might feel some silence, some stillness, then the faintest rustle and shudder as the hopes and aspirations of the day that is about to end are carried away. The planned tasks, the surprise meetings, the wishes from afar, the unheard voices, the broken promises, the repaired friendships, the re-done tasks, the unkissed lips, the unwritten letters, the air held in and scavenged… all: pulled off the frail moorings of intent and held aloft, distant to the horizon. Some hours later, accompanying the relentless sunrise, they are reborn in new and forgetful hope.
I often stumble into this wind if I walk in the late afternoon, laces too loose, feet too awkward, looking down and wishing difference, banishing mirrors, content neither in the city’s dead cement nor the country’s cold earth.
I expect that a few years before my death I will feel a different wind. A subtle, terminal wind of conclusion, leaving me enough time to ever more acutely hone the overpowering feelings that terrify me. A cruel wind, coldly reminding that voices will no longer be heard; that dreams will no longer be dreamt. And, fuelled by failure and inability, the wind will recall, with a slight gust, the luscious thoughts no longer spoken aloud, dreams and efforts pushed, both too late and too early, to their protracted conclusions.
This wind is closer than I wish; its path to me, direct.
