How do you know?
‘How do you know?’ The wind, careering through piles of crispy leaves, dashing them with wild abandon against the rough stone wall.
‘He meant to hurt you. How do you know?’ said the rain, lashing icy strands against my skin as I stand, shoulders drooping, heart stung.
‘He must do. Why else would he ignore me?’
‘You know what he means?’ Heavy grey clouds settle over in a morose and gloomy mood. ‘How do you know?’
‘It’s the only way to explain his words, how he means to undermine my efforts, to make me feel small, how he means to wound me and poke fun at my failure, at my ridiculous heart’
‘The only way?’ shriek the parakeets, wheeling wildly in their exhibitionist display, a bright rush of fluorescent wings as they move off together. ‘He knows your doubts, your fears? How do you know?’
‘You know what he means to do?’ a quiet voice of the shade, of long tangible shadows and failing light. ‘How do you know? You believe him capable of hurting you deliberately? You can think of him that way?’
‘I can think of him any way’ and the answer is quick and snappish, lip curled.
They are curious, noisy and wild in the havoc they wreak around me. Again and again they parry each thrust, never tiring, and I’m beginning to sense the fraying edges of my own certainty. With power and righteous persistence voices come at me, jostling, butting, buffeting.
‘How do you know?’ Earnest urging again and again, ‘How do you know?’
And I’m weakening. I begin to wonder if I do know, after all. If all this universal uproar, a whirling dervish, wrapping ribbon-like around my thoughts and teasing them apart, is speaking to me with one loving thought. While I’m trying to catch hold of the ends to tie them off, to maintain the tight little fists of stubborn limitation, to build from these airy shimmering strands of translucent possibility a solid hold that can contain all my unwanted softness.
‘He wants to punish me by withholding his heart.’
‘You know what he means to do?’ A dark and distant of rumble of thunder presses against me, the colour warm richness and smoky substance.
‘How do you know?’
The tree bends double, a springy and tender wand, laughing with joy to dance with the wind and I feel the answer, softly irresistible.
‘I don’t know’, I whisper. And the earth falls still and sighs.
July 2020
Beach Flow by Patrizia & Don Ross 2021 (photograph & cyanotype)