“I have made a pact with the night, I have felt it softly healing me.”
~ Aimé Césaire
Here in Arizona it’s harder to sleep that I would have imagined.
I think that night is helping you, but it’s sending me mad.
Each night I go to bed, exhausted, ready, eyes already closing.
Each night, just as sleep comes, just as I surrender, you appear.
A woman in worn boots, dusty skirts, hair in dark braids already laced with a little silver.
The story you are trying to share with me.
Some crazy fragment of a dream, or a life, or a thought.
Nothing making sense yet.
A few frames of a silent movie.
Or sound, but no images.
Moving from camp to camp, hut to track, always pushing on, always afraid.
Three women, your horses, and always, the intensity of your fear.
Secrets.
Snatches of thought or conversation.
Things that make no sense at all.
Like a bear in your camp, or hiding a baby in a rocky outcrop, or a rider with a gun who strikes terror in your heart.
Then, suddenly, I am thrown back up into the land of wakefulness. Adrenalin pumping, heart racing, eyes wide.
An hour or two later I fall back asleep and it starts again.
Who are you?
When will this stop?
