To Love Somebody
by
Steven Hunley
They looked like two friends walking through the park. They walked side by side, yet apart, each lost in their own private thoughts. She was looking away at the ducks on the pond. He was looking at her. Twisted autumn leaves, browned and yellowed, crackled like cellophane under their feet. The tops of the trees swayed back and forth in the breeze; a small boy flew a metallic kite with a red streaming tale full of life.
On her left hand, on the third finger, a gold ring, marking her as the wife of his best friend.
He felt “that way” about her for months now, but hadn’t said a word. He knew she didn’t feel the same. The walk-way was dappled with sunlight and shade, as if touched by a painter’s brush.
The pond was a Monet of water lilies.
All he noticed were shadows.
A light, a certain kind of light, had never shone on him. He lived his life in darkness, in obscurity, in perpetual silence. His feelings would remain unspoken, his desires, unfulfilled. Love hurts when only one’s in love.
She never saw him as a man, but as a companion, at times a confidant or a play-mate, a good friend, nothing more.
He wanted her eyes to see him as a lover, a paramour at least, or perhaps with luck, her knight in shining armor, her Richard the Lion Heart.
She preached spirituality. He spoke only of flesh. Their two worlds were never to meet.
They stopped. She dipped her hand in the water. Cool rivulets escaped her palm and ran between her fingers. He watched the back of her head. Her hair was up, but where it met her shoulders, soft delicate curls caressed her pale neck. His consciousness was lost in the loops of her hair; she was Yeat’s brown penny.
When she turned around she was crying.
“What’s wrong, Michelle?”
“It’s not working out,” she sobbed. “It hasn’t been working out for some time.”
Suddenly she put her right hand to her left and pulling off the ring, cast it into the water.
He took out his handkerchief and dried her tears.
“Let’s go back. We can talk over coffee.”
The walk back was spectacular. He noticed the sweet smell of the freshly mown lawn. The sun streamed down through the rustling leaves and surrounded them with a cathedral of light. The day was like no other, new, fresh, inexplicably changed.
And if you had been there as I was, if you had seen them as I did, you’d notice she was holding his hand.
© Steven Hunley 2012
http://youtu.be/ykU8iSKkJR0 Bee Gees To Love Somebody
Brown Penny
I WHISPERED, 'I am too young,'
And then, 'I am old enough';
Wherefore I threw a penny
To find out if I might love.
'Go and love, go and love, young man,
If the lady be young and fair.'
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
I am looped in the loops of her hair.
O love is the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away
And the shadows eaten the moon.
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin it too soon.
William Butler Yeats