A Solstice Lullaby

It was Beltane when he last loved me. I just did not know.

The rumble of thunder echoed from far in the future, like a warning of the times to come.

But that day there was still the lingering promise of the sun, if only I could draw the Sun again…

If not, I could always get closer to the sky and feel its warmth before the rain arrived.

So I went on the journey through the city of asphalt and stone until the mountain by the sea, the mountain that I dream of, where grandmother rests under marble and bones.

Up there, Spring had been slow cooking the sweetest scent. The air was filled with candied chestnuts and a bit of spice, enough to make everyone sneeze and make me run. We stopped at every bloom when everything was just beginning, and tried to sniff the essence of every plant. As if by smelling them, you could get to know their strange identities.

We found huge lilies hanging from the branches waiting for us, unsuspected pollinators, to bury our faces in their honey cups. He pulled them closer to me and they looked so much like sound horns that I was sure soon I would hear the song of trees, captured forever inside the flower.  Instead, I heard him. He sounded warm and chilled like a solstice lullaby.

We made our way down and left behind the old cable car swiftly crossing the sea. 

We were looking for a city with no people and, instead, found an alien place where cactuses were masters. They rose as tall as skyscrapers, a vertical labyrinth of fractals and spikes. It could have been a fortress once, in its native land, or perhaps even before that, inside a seashell. But here it was full of tourists at its gates and we, in the centre of it all, became the little people inside the snowball.

The sun had gone and, without it, came the cold. It was Beltane, I just did not know. He loved me still when we were still warm.