But to you without my moving
Without seeing you, distant you
Go my blood and my kisses
My dark one and my fair one…….Pablo Neruda….
THE ICE PRINCESS..…………….AN ORIGINAL……………….BY RUSTY…………………………..
The ice princess glides among the mud flats, moving quietly in the belly of a cool October, Florida night. The hem of her pretty aqua dress, transparent with moon, dragging along the well worn paths of the bandy armed crabs, the shy soft shelled mollusks. In the smoky distance, the large, dark green palm tree fronds undulate with calmness and reverence within the arriving darkness, casting oblong shadows along the white-pink skirts of the shore. The ice princess blinks quietly, gathering up the hem of her long dress, holding it delicately in her hands as it brushes by her ankles which are pale and pretty. She lives for the night. Breathes in the night. The night is her sword and her shield, her comforter, the dark repository of her ancient secrets which are moth-tinged, moon-bathed, scrupulously hidden in the folds of her flowing dress, the deep echoing canyons of her soul, hidden in the sea-green of her eyes which light the darkness with time travelled golden torch clarity and brilliance. affordable prom dresses
Her green eyes glitter with whimsy and longing, as she stares out over the sea she just left. She remembers the green tailed, ocean blue eyed mermaids, wet ringlets of fire-gold, who live at the bottom of the sea in castles of stone and light, cobbled together with skill and smooth pink coral. The mermaids, like vampires, rise through the dark silent waves of the sea at night, invisible, misty.
They silkily, with long bejeweled green limbs, move towards the great flat rocks, slinging the wet hair off of their shoulders, singing the siren songs of begilement, love and death, tombstones, shadowed scaffolding, eyeless, threatening skulls They hum and preen, their huge tails beating out a plangent, coded tattoo on the flat rocks to eager and stupid grizzled, long haired bearded men. Men who are mean. Men looking for love and affirmation in the cheap dirty, poorly lit brothels which litter the wharfs, the winding back alleys, the dark bars where names are insignificant, the coin of the realm a pretty smile, a quicksilver flash of leg, a hint of fang glinting within heavily blue shadowed eyes made distant, unfocused and inaccessible, dangerous with drug and drink.
The fluttering lipstick parade of feminine charms capturing the wounded hearts of ordinary men. There is little escape from these snake charmers of the human soul. A word. A whisper. A touch. A glance. The haughty swing of the ponytail. A basket of hidden roses. Men ensnared by the unappeasable thrust and longing for love, temporarily satiated by riding the galloping horses of new adventure, lust. The sophomoric relish with the acquisition of gleaming pedaled flesh. Cruel men, crowing ridiculously over conquests.
The earth blushing, shuddering on some level. Bars, back alleys where the screams of the night still echo and haunt, standing puddles of brackish water, where used needles float and bob cartoonishly, like children’ handmade paper boats, dingy rooms with dirty sagging beds, creaking springs, the desecrations of something sacred and special lost in a mad scramble for artificial, flimsy cardboard idols. The true, pearlescent Holy Grail trembles, rolling away from the touch of the madman. Godforsaken and cursed places, seemingly outside the reach of time where the candles of life are expunged with a rattling rasp of the devil’s breath.
The mermaids are adept at slyly entering through the unguarded doors of the hearts of men.. They giggle and they hang painted hands out over the waves, wiggling fingertips, cradling the bones of hapless drunken sailors still holding green bottles of half-full+ amber ale. They jangle the bones of the farm boys from jiggling fingers, suspending them over the mystery of the sea; dangling wind chimes. These green limbed fish-women smile softly, waiting for the next ship to venture to its watery grave.
The ice princess walks slow and deliberate. Her feet are bare and nimble and she appears to be walking on air as a light mist slides off the top of the water in rolling gasps. She leaves the mudflats, pausing to sit on a broken log drenched in purring twilight shadow, draped in seaweed and kelp, blue flowers and wise old mushrooms which cling easily to the side of the log. A spider’s web picks up staying light which swirls in the sky before dropping into the webs beautiful, intricate, architectural, cathedral filaments as slender and fine as the golden hair of a child. She picks a blue flower and she places it with feminine delight in her dark hair. She smiles proudly and secretly. She runs a hand through the wet tangle of her hair which falls past her shoulders, down her back before finally coming to rest just above the swell of her rounded hips..
She is tempted to walk back to the water to look at her reflection in the little blue-green watered lagoon which abuts the mudflats. She used to gaze into the water for hours as a little girl, wondrous at her reflection. Her smile innocent, her face alive with youth. Her dark hair combed through with a sea shell, the soft knowing hands of her mommy braiding her hair into soft plaits as shiny as a new dime. The soft ministering words.. You’ll be a beauty one day darling. Mommy’s princess. Always remember that huh? Mommy’s princess. She had never forgotten. Her mommy had been a good prophet. For she had indeed turned out to be a beauty .
But there is really no need to retrace her steps to the water. She smiles quietly. Enigmatically. She knows that she is pretty. She knows that her hair would sparkle like soft diamonds and that the blue flower would appear to flame with unquenchable fire. She pulls a drought of nighttime air and she sighs. She smoothes out her pretty dress. It travels down her legs like quicksilver. It falls past her ankles. There is a little silver bracelet with the solemn profile of a tiny unicorn charm attached to her left ankle, winding around her bones with a tender touch, the fragile clasp. A cherished present from a boy. A boy with straight dark brown hair he was habitually brushing off of his forehead, watchful, deep brown eyes which could take situations in at a glance. One fine day, the sun living in her hair, the boy stroking it with curious hands.
She fell in love with him. So very many years ago. After all these years, she can still see his face, the way he moved through the snow with a fierce expression on his face. His head lowered, his shoulders strong and resolute as he marched against the roar of a winter wind. She can still hear his sobs, looking deeply into those brown eyes, which always held the sweet traces of frisky puppy dogs and footballs being tossed gaily into cold, leaf-blown November skies. The sands of time fall inside her head and she is extending her hands out in a supplicating reflex to catch his tender tears. She sighs again, picks another blue flower off of the log which she spins contemplatively in her fingertips.. Around and around.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
But the dead youth must go on by himself,
And silently, the elder lament takes him as far as the ravine..
Where shimmering in the moonlight, is the fountainhead of joy,
With reverence she names it and says…….
Among men it is a mighty stream…
They stand at the foot of the mountain range,
And she embraces him weeping.
Alone, he climbs on, up the mountains of primal grief.
And not once, do his footsteps echo from the soundless path….
..Ranier Maria Rilke………….
…………………………………………………………….
She remembers when she first met him, High school. They both were fifteen. She had been surreptitiously watching him as he sat cross-legged in his fine blue jeans, ensconced on a little stone bench which rested underneath a slender apple tree on the school quad. It was lunchtime. The quad empty except for his thin shimmering silhouette. The sky was a lovely blue and cloudless. She stood hidden behind a different apple tree, her painted hands curled delicately around the bark. A light breeze naughtily ruffling the hem of her pale blue sundress which floated like happy bumblebees around her strong thighs.
The sun has glazed golden his face and arms as he strummed his trusty guitar. She watches the muscles in his forearms twitch as he strummed with ease and precision. In a hypnotic voice, he softly sang a country song…………….Something about a favorite dog that died, a dad who became a raging alcoholic, spending most nights utterly alone in a dark dank bar called the limping buffalo. The mom getting older, her face losing the magnetic luster and elastic plasticity of her youth. Her body starting to crumble like a half-eaten birthday cake.
She spent most days in her prized rose garden, aimlessly spreading the dirt around. Pruning the roses with little half smiles. She brushes the hair off of her face and looks with horror at the gray which has been taking up a steady, unwanted residence for the last year and a half. Where has it all gone, she is saying. Oh where has it all gone. She speaks to her roses and she glances off to her left, gazing tragically at her reflection which haunts her, her eyes misty and failing, as a hot sun falls down the sides of a glistening giant red tomato…………. .
She takes a deep breath. She screws up her courage and almost ethereally, she steps out from the sheltering branches and the protection of the apple tree. The wind blows again. With appropriate, proprietary modesty, her hands drop to the pretty pale blue sundress. She suppresses a giggle and moves carefully to the boy on the stone bench.
She stands above him, stealing quadrants of his sun. He look up from this new shadow which drapes his shoulders and finds her green eyes.
Hey, is all he says. But there is music and friendliness in his tone.
Hi, she says……..
Then suddenly, a silence falls between them. From their respective wombs of curiosity and wonder, they fall into each other’s eyes. It is pleasant and only a touch uncomfortable. Finally she breaks from the silence..
It’s a sad song, she says.
Yes.
The poor dad, she says.
Yes.
And the mom, she adds. Sitting in her garden all day pruning roses and looking into tomatoes.
It’s just a song, he replies. His voice is very quiet and she doesn’t know if he has taken offense.
But I like it. She smiles and she rushes on, speaking a little too fast. Oh no, she thinks. Don’t blow this.
He turns his eyes away and goes back to his strumming. His eyes are a deep brown and she believes she sees a tender sensitivity and some kind of unvoiced longing in those brown eyes. They are the color of polished leather. His cheekbones are finely sculpted and his jaw is strong. His hair is dark and it falls like silk, barely touching the edges of his shoulder blades
Do you mind of I sit?
Please….and he pats a free patch of stone beside him twice.
She draws upon her femininity for the proper descent letting a hand bend at the wrist, hovering briefly in the air, easing down with a little gasp, holding the folds of her the pale blue sundress, crossing her legs, one leg over the other, settling softly at the knee. One painted hand fluttering at her throat like the wing of a blue jay.
Glass-like sounds fill the air like fine white powder, drifting lazily like moths. The apple tree shaken above them by the wind. The red brick of the school buildings, a couple of hundred feet away, hot and tired and magnificent with the baking sun.
What’s your name?
He tells her.
I love it, she says brightly. A way cool name.
Thanks. He strums. The mournful tune filling up the empty places in her callow soul.
What’s yours? He turns to her and his handsome brown eyes kick up some dust in her. She startles for the smallest of seconds. A pony with a rope tossed carefully, lovingly around her neck.. She lurches back, rights herself, blushes. With a nonchalance she does not feel, her hand slowly moves the falling dark bangs away from her green eyes. She blinks prettily. The sundress rustles sweetly in the sun.
I am the ice princess.
Really? He stops strumming and he gives her his eyes once again.
Well………..not really but don’t you think it’s a cool name?
I do.
It’s different like yours right?
Right.
It’s unique.
Right.
After a while………..the wind blowing, as soft as pollen, past the apples and the boy and the girl sitting quietly on the stone bench. The quad still, as quiet as the graveyard in town, nestled close to the Catholic church, 17 miles away.
She looks over at him, and down……I like your jeans.
Thanks.
They fit you well. There is only a little catch in her voice. Don’t go too far, she thinks suddenly. I like this guy. Don’t go too far.
They’re just ordinary jeans.
But they don’t look ordinary on you. They look…um……well……….i don’t know……….they’re fine. They’re real fine….
He smiled soft then. He reached across the short distance and he, very lightly, very carefully, moved a hand into the unexplored jungle of her long dark hair.
She shuddered.
I’m sorry, he said sincerely. I……his voice trailing off.
No, no……….it’s ok. I mean……….
I didn’t mean to……….
No, no. it’s fine. It’s okay. You just surprised me.
I’m sorry.
Don’t be. ..
And so…..time stood still……….……they sat, side by side, moving imperceptibly closer to each other on the stone bench as a few shadows lengthened and spiraled over the hanging apples and the dark branches of the apple tree swaying gently above their heads…
They silently track each other’s breathing…………..
Please reach for my hand, she thinks. She tossed off vibrations that this entreaty would be alright. She threw a couple of inquisitive, tender glances at him. He seemed not to pick them up. Or if he did, he was playing possum and chose not to act. Maybe he was shy too. Maybe he was waiting for her. Who knew?..
I’d like to see you again. She tries to infuse some casualness into her voice which trembles slightly. She wants to stroke the side of his face. She refrains.
That would be nice.
It’s always weird meeting someone for the first time right?
Right.
I mean………..it’s tough to connect.
Yes.
I think we did pretty well.
Yes.
There is so much to say, and lots of times, well, we talk about things that don’t really mean anything. Elevator talk, she adds after a natural pause.
Good way to put it. That voice, she thinks. What is it about his voice that I like so much? It’s timbre and lilt knocking carefully at the doors of her heart. Be careful about who you let into your life, her mom always says. Especially the boys.
We could meet here tomorrow? What do you say? He seems, at first blush, not to take on the coloration of those around him. He seems, she believes, to row his own canoe on the lake of life. It was somehow transmitted to her by the way he sang his sad song. If this is true, it would be refreshing from all of the other high school boys who were, sometimes transparently comically, trying to tag up on her. She got tired of that. Cockroaches who needed to be stepped on. If only…………Well…………
I think it’s a great idea, he was speaking.
You do?
Yes.
There is a peace about you…... She makes a little half turn towards him…..her dress rides up her legs. She pushes it back down with calm hands…….. Something comfortable and reassuring. It’s as if I already know you somehow. Do you ever get that feeling with someone?
She can see him thinking. He flats a palm and slides it over the blue fabric of his jeans……..It’s rare, he says with reflective softness.
You can play another song for me.
If you wish.
You do know more songs?
Yeah. I know a bunch.
Are they all sad?
A lot of them.
We’ll write a song together. A happier song.
That would be nice.
A collaboration.
Yes…………
She wants to be pretty for him. She hopes he thinks she’s pretty…... And real……Her hands idly play with the dress….
They sat a while longer. The comfort of the stone bench. The gold of the sun. The tumble of shadows. The apples singing above them: an appreciative choir. The wind and the amazing blue of the sky and the graveyard quiet within which they were both sowing the seeds of cautious communication, however tentative and hushed.
I have a class, she was saying.
Silence.
She has folded her hands in the well of her pale blue sundress. Looking at him, relaxed in humble profile. The strap of his guitar hangs loosely on his shoulders.
She leans over and plants a soft kiss upon his cheek. She watches his lips as they curl into a smile. His lips are full and she wonders about them.
She stands and pushes a hand through her dark hair as it falls all around her like a dark, mountain waterfall.
I’ll see you tomorrow, she says. And she calls his unusual name. Goodbye for now.
I’ll see you soon ice princess.
They way he says her name Tingles and shudders, and unspoken, whispered promises..
She stands as the wind whips her dress around her legs, slides through the darkness of her hair. Laughter spills from her body like overflowing milk. She stands and she walks. I’ll give him a little treat, she thinks slyly. He’s been so nice to me.
Hey………..she yells walking away from him. Her voice echoes loudly off of the sun-baked red bricks of the school building. And she gives her pretty bottom a little practiced shake with panache and deftness.
Are you looking at my bottom? She yells.
No.
You’re such a liar. A tide of giggles. The pale blue sundress billowing like the sail on a great ship.
I don’t lie. He yells back.
Oh yeah? Well, we’ll see about that. Goodbye Mr. guitar man. Goodbye boy of mystery. And she shakes her lovely bottom again. Her much sought after bottom. She puts a little more oomph into it. Her famous giggle. Her deserves this little treat, she thinks soberly..
And she giggles her way towards her next class. Swishing away. She hopes his dark brown eyes are upon her. There is a lot in those eyes of mystery, she thinks. She could easily melt into them. She’ll find out who he is. What makes him tick. She has a marvelous unerring discerning spirit. Especially for being a teenage girl in high school. It’s going to be circus fun to dive into those eyes and to nuzzle up next to his heart.
His sad country song glides through her bones and she can’t wait to see him tomorrow. She walks through the amber colored, cool autumnal light and she sighs. Sometimes you have to look underneath the rocks for the good boys. Sometimes they just appear before you. Like a magician’s trick. Sometimes they even play a bit of guitar and are timelessly waiting for you. Reclining languidly on a stone bench underneath the sheltering branches of an apple tree………a shy smile………..whispers of enchantment on the air……………..
They spent the whole summer together. Fragilely bound. Each exploring, stepping lightly through their respective wind- blown prairies of brambles and rain, the rough rocks and the fire which slashes through the tall trees, liberally flowing through the ever changing landscape of tender sometimes turbulent adolescence.
It was a magical time of her life.. It was unrecoverable. She never wanted it to end……………….
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
O trees of life, when does your winter come?
We are not in harmony, our blood does not forewarn us
Like migratory birds, late, overtaken,
We force ourselves abruptly into the wind
And fall to earth at some iced over lake.
Flowering and fading come to us both at once.
And somewhere lions still roam, and never know,
In their majestic power…………of any weakness……..
….Ranier Maria Rilke…………….
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
.
She emerges from her memory of long ago……..She wishes to stay………..to go back again……She misses him. She misses him so much………..…Oh God……………..why…….why did?......….And she remembers………..Oh………………………
She sighs and she blinks her eyes quietly…………. Her green eyes wince, catching medallions of falling moon as the night takes Her majestic flight over the earth. She rises off of the log, discarding the blue flower, and she resumes her slow march. Her pretty ankles flashing like switchblades. The unicorn charm bobbing along. Her mission must not be delayed. Her dress swishes. She runs a hand through her wonderful mane of dark hair again. She shakes out tiny droplets of water which fall over her shoulders, onto wet sand where they glimmer spectacularly before they dissolve forever. She walks trancelike into a cone of moonlight and shimmers.
Light envelopes her, burying itself in her hair, glossing her slender arms. Her bare feet twinkle as they move off of the shore, towards the city. Her mission. She only has a few days. The lights of the city blink in the distance and she walks. The curving trunks of the palm trees list and the dark green fronds sway and shiver. The twilight soft and silent, like a Kansas wheat-field at dawn after a long night of rain.
Only the sounds of her dress rustling in the night. The brush of butterfly wings. She walks. The graceful one, holding deep imperishable grain sacks full of clouds and fragrant spring breezes. She throws her head back, laughing quietly, enjoying the feel of wind on her skin. She smiles the softest of smiles. The ice princess is moving unalterably towards her sanctioned destiny. The bandy armed crabs and the shy soft shelled mollusks crawling back to their kingdoms of mud and darkness. The pretty dress rustles and the pretty lady sighs. Only a few days. She steps carefully through puddles of moon, gliding, thinking, moving, knifing through the night……………..
Whaling gusts of wind sweep the land. The whispers of the dying lifted up to the jeweled pearly gates of heaven. And……outside the gates they wait…..….And they wait…..
The wind buckles, moves on, traveling past the tall lantern yellow windows of the rich and powerful. The tiny, cracked, round windows of the poor covered in soot, bent pennies pushed up desperately against the glass……. tiny, frightened faces peering out into the falling darkness. The wind rumbles with the voice of God, moving past the cradles and the tombs, the mountains and the rivers, the grief possessed tottering bravely on, stabbing broken wooden walking sticks into mud and the long cracks in the sidewalks…
. The night an untamed river of molten coal as it invisibly thunders past the little stumbling, confused creatures of mankind…………….finally, tumbling, like the broken doll of a small child, into a pocket of soft twilight. There……….to vanish…………….to rest……………….to breathe lightly……….……….if only for a little while……………….……before moving on once again……………….
.......................................................................................................
Tongues wrangled dark at a man
He buttoned his overcoat and stood alone
In a snowstorm, red hollyberries, thoughts
He stood alone……….…………..Carl Sandburg…..