To let it go, to let it go

“To live in this world, you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go”

Mary Oliver

She is lying on the grass. 

She could not say how long, but she has been here for quite some time, since the birds opened their mouths to the morning and began their reveille.

She is lying on the grass and there is a stillness settling around her, resting lightly against her skin. The sun is falling in the sky, dropping gentle rays upon her closed eyes, filling her mind with soft, still amber.

She is still, the only movement the rise and fall of her chest as she inhales and exhales against the breath of the breeze.

Behind her closed eyes, she is remembering: the soft bubbles of the water as she washed the dishes before leaving the house. She is remembering the shine of clean glass as it dried in the sun. She is remembering prayer flags outside the window, stirring like treetops in a summer forest.

Remembering, she smiles. Remembering, she is lost to the blushing sun, she is lost to the velvet breath of the breeze.

Behind her closed eyes, she is thinking. I am no more the scar tissue of my past. I am no more the pain, the tears, the furies of my loves, the tempests. I am no more the sum of my mind, my heart, my soul. Greater than all these things, this now, this moment, this sudden realisation. Greater than this, to be here, now.

The sun is falling. There is a chill sweeping across the horizon towards her as it slides into the approaching evening.

She is opening her eyes. She is beginning to awaken.

She is rising from the grass, taking in the stars as they reveal themselves to the sky. And standing, she tilts back her head, inhales and drinks the approaching night, before heading towards the darkness, home.