On the Wind – Victoria, BC – [10/12/2018]

You still can’t hear them.

It’s all right. It’s still all right. You never can. We know that, we always have. You still look at us like we’re crazy. We’re not, we never have been; any more than you are.

It’s easier, we know, for you not to believe that.

But I’m amongst them this year, this is their town, their night, their time. You can’t hear them, but we can. I can. They don’t soothe, they don’t cajole. They batter like birds caught in a cage…voices carried on the wind, just out of reach, just out of hearing.

But there, none the less. Always there.

Carrying through the cobwebs in my head, the cotton wool in my ears. Washing the film off my eyes. Invading our dreams, leaving us waking unfulfilled, nervous and shaking.

You laugh up your sleeve at our black jewelry, our obsession with detail. You don’t know why we do it. That’s fine. You don’t have to. We would never ask that of you.

It’s such a quiet invitation, so persistent.

Come away, come away with us…

They’ll never notice, you know that, we can make it so you were never gone. Or make it so that you never were, if you prefer. Just let us know, just answer us, just listen.

Just listen…

Every year, you send your children out into the night, never remembering that it is not the smiling pumpkins and candy overdoses you have to worry about. Never remembering how this ritual started. Where it came from. Forgetting who this night belongs to, what this season belongs to.

You can’t hear them.

Be grateful for that.

Be grateful we can.

And maybe explain to us, why we don’t just go out to the waters, and into the wilds…and join them.