Die Straße, written by Adam Vincent Clarke, 2016.

“So, in the hills the air, thin in wisps of a phrase, pull the cumulus lightly around & a mother coos her child inside a house. In the town, the passing trams with passengers swinging ‘round bends, twirl betwixt the others, like trailing apple blossoms caught on a wind.

The click-clack of cobblestone paths, brings one’s memory through the dark, damp under-ways of a port-city; torch-lead expedition through seasons long since turned and turned. Leaf to Laub (German). Light, to fires alight in heart and hearth, in a home now stead by lovers who had long since met.

And through the side-streets, alleyways, and hidden city parks, lines of prose tossed among breads, cheeses and meats, brush the sides of handwoven baskets, as if to leave room for loves fulfilling grace – as he joined in singing secret melodies; one night. two months. and a week.

In rolling fields grew fine wine and apricot trees, glowing strands of Heather from close-distant dreams. It whispered few words though she caught them all this eve. Tasting each phrase from the branches of a cherry tree. “A son loves a daughter, wait and you’ll see… the way that he gazes, reaches out to feel beyond the air, to shed the bland infatuation that walks through the clear glass doors, only to be stunned, and spun right back out again. Oh sweet girl, just open your senses and although you do not know me. I know my son loves you. I know this you will see.”

In the road, cutting through a thicket; stones separating shores reveal sacred steps, steering staving slender silhouettes sideways through a labyrinth of rosen-thorn: the path of the artist; the realization of dreams. Forgetting the way she came and at times the people she’d seen. Startled she turns at a rustle, tossing a desperate glance to the side; at the wolf-pups of fear, loneliness, pain pulling at the ear, and… her eyes now fall upon a spark in the night. A torch through the hedges. She follows and sees the edge of the water, and beneath a tree caressing the pelt of his wolf licking his wounds, he, the man, you see – he traveled with her here, she knew it. The realization struck like a clap of thunder thought nothing touches her skin save velvet lily-petals and a light breeze. How long had he known her? The thought, it seemed insane; apes dancing to the whimper of a movie-scene. She is confounded, gagged in disbelief, for her wolf-pup approaches his; his head rocks ‘round the bark, and through the boughs the words billow gently: “you’ve found me.”

“Why did you follow? Oh I beg you, please tell me who you are, and why does my wolf finally still, what are these memories I see. I’ve never walked them, neither halls nor city streets, yet they baptize me in knowing as if they already are – already have been.

… the walking stick rolls off his fingertips to land with a “chhhh” on a small bundle of pine. Turning his torso, she notices first the raw earth as it pushes through the spaces between his toes, casting forth a sweet eruption of perfume like that of light rain drizzled upon an aging street. In an instant it seems he vanishes and reappears inches before her own feet, yet she is left un-startled still enraptured by the drooping leaves – first now seeing he wore no cloth nor clothes. He appears before her a shaman, nothing save the man, not shoes nor scarf to cast illusion of his beauty. His scars, his weakness’. To see who he really is, acceptingly, grants this meeting.

“I spoke years ago, under branches much like these. twisting, stretching, growing through the air and I spoke to a being I could not see. Yet this woman, yes it was a woman, somehow jumped inside of me. I spoke and the words which dripped off my tongue were these: “Though I do not yet know you, though you do not yet know me. I want you to know what you are struggling through, what hurts you, what worries you… it will all be okay. Although I’ve yet to meet you, I love you. I love you with all my heart and soul. I am here for you, though you haven’t yet seen me – we found one another already. I look forward and await the day you will be with me.

With a feathered motion she went to him feet touching feet. Upon the spring-warmed ground they made love. They were finally free.

Now in the city the trams still roll by, in the streets the bicycles still pass by. On the outskirts of town the chickadees still gently peep. Now in the forest… aaah in the forest, a magician and a fairy reside. Two mystical lovers; you and I. Since this day they sit with the wolves finally asleep, to caress each others lives, to share the seasons to pass; his Winter, her Spring, their Summer, the beauty of a crisp Autumns’ eve. They set forth to build a home, a life together, their own legacy. Years later it will be said, long after they leave: “One can see, under a crescent moon, the Man and the Woman dancing beneath a weeping willow tree.”