Everything will balance, like warm wind and cold water, like a dream of two bright sorrel horses running through a daisy field, like the birth of spring after the dead of winter.

A fistful of wet hair in the water and wet lips, wet eyelashes, passion mingled with ferocity, the water of the stream chilly in the late dark night. How tightly will teeth close against skin before pleasure turns to pain, and wherein lies the distinction? Fingertips seek purchase on slick smooth skin, each inch alive with the chill of the water and the fever of touch. The burn from the cold water balances the burn of fleshy desire. Moss grows thick and lush, tender and soft clinging to hard stone.

Stars float on the surface far below the spangling brilliant distant heavenly lights. The light comes only from the sky. No clouds, ephemeral formations of both air and water, mar the surfaces of either purity, but the steamed breath from two bodies rises and dissipates and the churned water where the surface is broken and swirling with bodies contains bubbles that rise and sigh at the surface. This is where the lines are drawn and the elements seek to balance once again in the dark's pregnant stillness.

The tingling prickled bumps of skin rub together abrasive. Tree frogs and bull frogs sing their intricate far and wee chorus in the reeds amid the rocks as the water slides soundlessly through the crease in the earth. Gravity from the earth's rotation pulls the water down from the hills to the valley, from the valley to the gorge, from the gorge to the delta, from the delta to the ocean, and there it is lifted again in great billowing clouds and dropped once more in the mountains.


Our heart beats, felt more than heard, loud through the rain against the window pane, keeping time with the rhythm of the moon.