That I should witness such beauty,
and that you should not be here to share it.
Let me explain. To the one side, blue mountains
topple into blue waters, rippling together, and on
the other, the sky is a flamingo pink. Forward, center,
the colors swarm, golden flecks sparkling between
layers. There is a sea lion swimming quite near,
he turns his head towards me in acknowledgement,
or curiosity, he dives under. Pelicans soar overhead
against the horizon, turning suddenly to dive like
fighter pilots into the waves, pulling up billfulls
of silver. There are fossils and clam shells,
the cliffs rise above the tide pools, here and there
large pieces of driftwood lay like spent flesh,
and all the rocks are heart-shaped.
In addition to this, a woman near the Gaza border
was found beheaded today. There has been such
violence, the skies are black and smoke-filled,
there is no sunset to observe when explosions
override softer colors, there is no birdsong,
there is no clear water, there is no restful sleep.
You and I read the headlines, we know someone
who knows someone, who has lost someone,
who is lost. Manhunts are concluded, people
resurface, and the colors in the sunset appear
even sharper. I long for your company, but my
mourning is so little compared to the unfathomable
pain of a nation of people besieged, of a mother’s
great loss, of the inability to simply go outside
and watch the sea, to hurl one’s grief into its
immense embrace, to swim in the folds of a
marvelously beautiful sunset, to know that at least
one’s loved ones are safe.
Somehow there must be a balance, some
epicenter where a human life that has been violently
executed is resurrected, reconnected, renewed,
replenished. But here on the earth yet, with its
inexplicable variance, its contradiction and dichotomy,
where I stand gazing at the sky melting into a sea
of color, where the executioner must see only blood
red, and the loved ones of a woman decapitated must
be blinded by the harsh salt of a million tears,
that I should witness such beauty, and
that I should be able to tell you all about it.
—
Aurore Sibley is a writer, educator, and musician living in California. Her poetry and prose have appeared in The Write Launch and Lilipoh magazine, in addition to numerous online and print publications, and her poetry collections are available through Finishing Line Press. Aurore also recorded and produced an album of original music entitled Book of Song in 2020, and has a short story in the forthcoming anthology Santa Cruz Ghost Stories.
