In love they wore themselves in a green embrace.
A silken rain fell through the spring upon them.
In the park she fed the swans and he
whittled nervously with his strange hands.
And white was mixed with all their colours
as if they drew it from the flowering trees.

At night his two finger whistle brought her down
the waterfall stairs to his shy smile
which like an eddy, turned her round and round
lazily and slowly so her will
was nowhere—as in dreams things are and aren't.

Walking along avenues in the dark
street lamps sang like sopranos in their heads
with a voilence they never understood
and all their movements when they were together
had no conclusion.

Only leaning into the question had they motion;
after they parted were savage and swift as gulls.
asking and asking the hostile emptiness
they were as sharp as partly sculptured stone
and all who watched, forgetting, were amazed
to see them form and fade before their eyes.

Lovers all are soldiers, and Cupid has his campaigns:
I tell you, Atticus, lovers all are soldiers.
Youth is fit for war, and also fit for Venus.
Imagine an aged soldier, an elderly lover!
A general looks for spirit in his brave soldiery;
a pretty girl wants spirit in her companions.
Both stay up all night long, and each sleeps on the ground;
one guards his mistress's doorway, one his general's.
The soldier's lot requires far journeys; send his girl,
the zealous lover will follow her anywhere.
He'll cross the glowering mountains, the rivers swollen with storm;
he'll tread a pathway through the heaped-up snows;
and never whine of raging Eurus when he sets sail
or wait for stars propitious for his voyage.
Who but lovers and soldiers endure the chill of night,
and blizzards interspersed with driving rain?
The soldier reconnoiters among the dangerous foe;
the lover spies to learn his rival's plans.
Soldiers besiege strong cities; lovers, a harsh girl's home;
one storms town gates, the other storms house doors.
It's clever strategy to raid a sleeping foe
and slay an unarmed host by force of arms.
(That's how the troops of Thracian Rhesus met their doom,
and you, O captive steeds, forsook your master.)
Well, lovers take advantage of husbands when they sleep,
launching surprise attacks while the enemy snores.
To slip through bands of guards and watchful sentinels
is always the soldier's mission - and the lover's.
Mars wavers; Venus flutters: the conquered rise again,
and those you'd think could never fall, lie low.
So those who like to say that love is indolent
should stop: Love is the soul of enterprise.
Sad Achilles burns for Briseis, his lost darling:
Trojans, smash the Greeks' power while you may!
From Andromache's embrace Hector went to war;
his own wife set the helmet on his head;
and High King Agamemnon, looking on Priam's child,
was stunned (they say) by the Maenad's flowing hair.
And Mars himself was trapped in The Artificer's bonds:
no tale was more notorious in heaven.
I too was once an idler, born for careless ease;
my shady couch had made my spirit soft.
But care for a lovely girl aroused me from my sloth
and bid me to enlist in her campaign.
So now you see me forceful, in combat all night long.
If you want a life of action, fall in love.

Already over the sea from her old spouse she comes,
the blonde goddess whose frosty wheels bring day.
Why do you hurry, Aurora? Hold off, so may the birds
shed ritual blood each year for Memnon's shade.
Now it's good to lie in my mistress's tender arms;
if ever, now it's good to feel her near.
Now drowsiness is richest, the morning air is cool,
and birds sing shrilly from their tender throats.
Why do you hurry, dreaded by men and dreaded by girls?
Draw back your dewy reins with your crimson hand.
The sailor marks the stars more clearly before you rise,
not raoming aimlessly across the sea;
the traveller, though weary, arises when you come,
and the soldier sets his savage hand to arms;
you're first to see the farmers wield their heavy hoes
and to call slow oxen under the curving yoke;
you rob boys of their sleep and give them over to schools,
where tender hands must bear the savage switch;
and you send reckless fools to pledge themselves in court,
where they take ruinous losses through one word;
the lawyer and the pleader take no delight in you,
for each must rise and wrangle with new torts;
and you ensure that women's chores are never done,
calling the spinner's hands back to her wool.
All this I'd bear; but who would bear that girls must rise
at dawn, unless himself he has no girl?
How many times I've wished Night would not yield to you,
the stars not fade and flee before your face!
How many times I've wished the wind would smash your wheels,
your steeds would stumble on a cloud and fall!
Jealous, why do you hurry? If your son is black,
it's since his mother's heart is that same color.
How I wish Tithonus could still tell tales of you:
no goddess would be more disgraced in heaven.
Since he is endless eons old, you rise and flee
at dawn to the chariot the old man hates,
but if some Cephalus were lying in your arms,
you'd cry out, 'O run slowly, steeds of night! '
Why should this lover pay, if your husband withers with age?
Was I the matchmaker who brought him to you?
Remember how much sleep was given to her loved youth
by Luna - and she's beautiful as you.
The father of gods himself, to see you all the less,
joined two nights into one for his desires.
I'd finished my complaint. You could tell she'd heard: she blushed;
and yet the day rose at its usual time.

...Short partings do best, though: time wears out affections,
The absent love fades, a new one takes its place.
With Menelaus away, Helen's disinclination for sleeping
Alone led her into her guest's
Warm bed at night. Were you crazy, Menelaus?
Why go off leaving your wife
With a stranger in the house? Do you trust doves to falcons,
Full sheepfolds to mountain wolves?
Here Helen's not at fault, the adulterer's blameless -
He did no more than you, or any man else,
Would do yourself. By providing place and occasion
You precipitated the act. What else did she do
But act on your clear advice? Husband gone; this stylish stranger
Here on the spot; too scared to sleep alone -
Oh, Helen wins my acquittal, the blame's her husband's:
All she did was take advantage of a man's
Human complaisance. And yet, more savage than the tawny
Boar in his rage, as he tosses the maddened dogs
On lightening tusks, or a lioness suckling her unweaned
Cubs, or the tiny adder crushed
By some careless foot, is a woman's wrath, when some rival
Is caught in the bed she shares. Her feelings show
On her face. Decorum's flung to the wind, a maenadic
Frenzy grips her, she rushes headlong off
After fire and steel... .

There was a calm felt before the storm
and also some uneasiness in every form
a hushed anticipation of what was soon to be
perhaps a fateful outcome of each one’s destiny.

During this time it became very dark and foreboding
that everything around lost all its charm and standing.
Suddenly there were flashes of lightning and clashes of thunder,
which rolled from the clouds, seen and heard by all there under.

Then a strong wind blew and a heavy rain began to fall
lashing onto everything around as it turned into a squall.
As the tempest raged on in a crescendo and reached its peak;
turning day into night and night into day, all seemed so bleak.

There many creatures all scampered and sought the safety of shelter,
out of the maelstrom unleashed by nature, in a state of helter-skelter.
They all knew their places when it came to that threat of danger;
out of harms reach they tried to flee even if it was with a stranger.

After the storm had spent all its fury and slowly subsided
a calm settled in again which had lately just been divided.
And all appeared to have been molested and somewhat shaken
as light broke through the clouds to make that day re-awaken.

While the storm in its wake seemed to have wreaked much devastation
the forces which had come into play reminded one of the act of creation,
when those seeds of life were implanted ages ago at the very beginning,
causing all things to gradually spring into existence with some meaning.

-------------------------------------------------------­---------------------------------

They ran so far, ran so much that the soles of her feet were stained with blood. His hand never lost its grip while hers was bathed in oil, her cheeks blushing with shock and excitement. To think they had pulled it off! She never felt so crazy in her whole, bland, little life!

The couple ran across streets. They ran across fields. The night smelled like a child's perfume. The flowers mixed their aroma with the grass to tempt any lover to imagine what their worth was. Only a sliver moon revealed itself, so they were blind to nearly everything, just as they were so blindly in love. It was an eerie night, but a captivating one.

They whisked past trees as if the tree boughs and twigs would swoop down  like a skeleton's arms and fingers, trapping them into a thorny grip. They dodged cars like they were alien outlaws from another realm. They ran like there was no tomorrow, and the whole world would explode in a moment.

She did not care what anyone would have thought of her. To have hung herself would have made more sense to her parents than to be so impulsive and take off with this man, this stranger. They would have insisted she was out of my mind--and she was--but she never felt so sure sure of herself.

She never knew who she was, but maybe she was about to know and it would be wonderful. The cares of her world seemed to melt, at least they did in the cool of the night as she gathered the courage to run free.

All was going well, as the wind kissed her cheeks and her mind felt eased of her burdens. Yet, for one brief moment, the desire to rip her hand away from his overtook her, a failed moment of self-doubt.

It did not seem like it was really her pulling her hand away. As she yanked free from his firm grip, she froze in her tracks, panting from sheer exhaustion. All the courage had sudenly drained out of her just as mysteriously as it had consumed her.

In the failing moonlight, the shadows played upon his face in ghoulish distortion. The chiseled, calm features seemed to transform. Suddenly, fear rose up in her and she wanted to deny what seemed so obviously grotesque. She rubbed her eyes. Were they playing tricks on her? She gasped.

Inbetween the shadows, his face looked demonic, like death. What was happening? For a second or two, she could not distinguish a man from a monster, who it was she was really following after.  It had to be an illusion!

His lips were formed out of putty and burnt rubber, seriously twisted out of shape. His teeth appeared busted and broken into jagged pieces of rotten glass. His eyes seemed to glow and slowly narrowed at her in frustration, his skin rough and embedded into hardened cheekbones.   She continued to rub her eyes and blinked hard a few times to erase that ugly, horrific  image.

A swirl of clouds veiled the moon, but they soon moved on to give her eyes some clarity again. Her perplexed lover was staring at her, his face fair again, well-proportioned and handsome.  So why couldn't she budge? She convinced herself that her eyes must have been playing tricks on her. She knew he was waiting for her to make a move, but she couldn't find the strength to respond to his wishes .

"Come on", he called out to her. Once again, he reached out his hand to beckon her to place her hand in his.

She now was not so sure of what she was doing. She stood there, dumbfounded, and so ashamed of herself. The leaves rustled in the wind as if they had lost their patience with her, too. Just a few moments ago, she had such courage. Now all the excitement and madness had abandoned her all at once, and she felt so small and powerless to the night, as if it was engulfing her in its darkness.

"Come on!", he repeated. The tone in his voice was angry now, and it sounded unnatural, gutteral. She dared not to look at him for fear the scary image of him would return. The minutes felt like they were ticking away in sludge, and the desire to run was creeping back into her, but not to run with him.

Soon, her lungs were stinging from the chill air of the night. "No", she feebly replied, "I can't do it".  Those few words took the last bit of energy she had.

He started trying to convince her to go on, but quickly the firm calmness in his voice had disappeared as his voice grew threatening. Before long it reached a crescendo of profanity and perversity, again sounding unnatural and more otherworldly than ever.

She began to cry in her helplessness. He mocked her. He shamed her. His words were punitive and cruel. She was nothing.  She was better off dead. She disgusted him and her presense degraded him. There was nothing good about her, nothing at all.  She was ugly, ignorant and usless. Fearful that he may hit her, she took it all in,  frozen with fear. But he did not touch her, yet it would have probably have hurt much less if he had. She shut her eyes to try to erase his image, and she covered her ears to drown out his cruel words and his harsh voice.

It may have been just a few minutes of him taunting her, but it seemed like eternity. She let him rage on instead of fighting back to defend herself. Fighting back seemed so futile, as she felt so cowardly and small next to him.  She could not find her voice even if she wanted to, but soon he had slipped off into the shadows, his footsteps sounding away from her upon the pavement on dirt road they had been running down together.

She was trembling now, more from cold than from fright. She now believed the threat was over. That was it. It was finished. As surely as it started, it was over. He was gone.

No, she was not going to run away that night. No prince or knight in shining armor was not going to rescue her to whisk her away to safety.  Nor was anyone going to take her away to a happier place that she often dreamed about.

So she slowly turned around to head back to her old existence. The hurt she felt was now turning into numbness, but that was nothing new in her life. She was used to it. She knew I did not have the life she had wanted, but she began to realize that it could have been much worse. Maybe she was nothing, like he had told her, but she was walking away and she was free. Yes, she was free from that nightmare that could have been the end of her.

She did not feel alive anymore, not like she did earlier, but she was able to put one foot in front the other take herself away from what had now become "nowhere".  She was confused at first to which way was which, but she  eventually found her way back to her familiar surroundings and headed home.