Prose: A Heart Undone

And there, just across the wadi that cut along the mint and primrose, stood a figure of a man caged lightly by the wisps of the willow tree that Grandpa Baker had planted all those years ago for Grandma Baker when they first met. Together now, these two symbols of love and yearning inexplicably aligned in the inviting glow of a spring time afternoon. Who was this man donning good looks here in this place of opportunity? Why it's Jessup Lee Braeburn, freshly returned from his travels abroad... or at least far from the quiets of this unchanging town. A rakish smile that advertises a history of good teeth and a large frame that displays an ancestry of good bones. Yes, that was indeed Jess. Who could mistake the dawning of a day were it not so clear in the bringing of light. Jess may not know of his presence for humility and upbringing assured his good breeding would not allow for bad manners. He was the sum of all things. A bastion of peace and contentment that could fill a room in quiet repose even though there be standing. It filled the shade of the willow and could almost be seen like a gem caught in the facet of an upturned ring. And Ann knew that this moment was one of those moments Grandma Baker spoke of with tears pooling in her cornered eyes. She called them "drops of heaven come just for me..." And when Grandma Baker looked to Ann to finish it with "... and for you," Ann knew that this woman who was not long for this world, perhaps never was long for this world, was vitality itself though there be hardship... and oh so very important to proof of goodness on earth. Grandma Baker referred to her happy thoughts as what poor people win. Reverie being the only means to joy for those in need of want, like rain for a drying field.

The cold water at the soles of her feet had ached at first dipping. Now, the warmth of this moment, or the numbness that set in, still equated to one thing: there was nothing to be felt as everything within her went strait to her heart. Beating large in her breast, like the loan connection to her soul that threatened to burst and come loose amidst the pounding. Why had he returned? What was here in this place that stood as the reason Jess would have come home... come here... now in this place? Ann could not move as the race of water and emotion rushed about her. Why was he here? And though she wanted to believe for all things... she simply kept asking as though the answer would float down on the water. Had the morning gone by so quickly? Had it been an hour, a day that she was standing there wondering? Had her heart beat that long in such a fervor? And then it happened: Jess stepped forward. And she knew the reason he had returned.