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Love’s Lexicon

Doubt the stars

are fire …

but never

doubt I love.

~ William Shakespeare

Absent in morning light

and afternoon’s white glare

sometimes obscure, distant

light years away

shrouded in cloud

blurred by winter’s wild nights

it is always there

in summer’s still evenings

it shines fiery bright

silver sparks tease the sea

patterns reconfigure

unlike the moon

it never wanes

it is undying fire

across an infinite blackboard

scripted forever

a lexicon of love

ageless, constant, endless

enduring, eternal

everlasting

perpetual, timeless

Judith Bruton ©

Yearning

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.

~ Albert Camus

Small beads of blood trickled between her closed fingers and trailed down her thin bare arm. The room blurred, her bottom lip quivered, and from her small frame came an uncontrollable penetrating wail. The two neighbours stopped laughing, put down their sherry glasses and with a hint of annoyance turned towards the child crying in the flickering light.

   May quickly huddled over her daughter and gently tried to unfold the small clenched hand.

  The hostess, Mrs Eckers, was fussing. ‘It’s all right, it’s all right dear … nothing to worry about, she’s just a child, doesn’t know any better…’

  The open hand finally yielded fragments of bright blue glass, silver glitter and feathers enmeshed with red blood.

  ‘She must have squeezed a bauble … the glass bird,’ Mrs Eckers cleverly deduced. The dazzling decorations on the tree had tempted the four-year-old Chloe, until finally she could resist no longer. Abruptly, she had felt the meaning of ‘fragility’, long before she would know the word.

  ‘I’ll replace anything broken,’ May called as she whisked her child home across the quiet street to wash away the blood. ‘Merry Christmas dear.’

   Merry bloody Christmas! Chloe grew up detesting Christmas and its frivolities, something her mother reminded her of frequently over the years—‘and you never even like Christmas’—as if this was the measure of all of Chloe’s sensibilities. She may as well have said ‘and you never want children’, although somehow she restrained from adding that chestnut. Apparently the latter was not considered as negative a sentiment as the former, and in later years was proudly explained away with ‘Chloe’s a career woman’ and ‘her dogs are her children.’

   Chloe tried to be on an island in Southeast Asia, or a remote town in Europe or anywhere else but home at Christmas, but the season could never be avoided. ‘It comes around quicker every year,’ May would say as she instinctively stocked the pantry with her enormous cloth-wrapped puddings and heavy brandy fruitcakes, like a nesting bird gathers twigs and feathers.

Christmas 87 Chloe could not afford travel as she had recently moved into her dream cottage studio by the sea. She was proud of her new, albeit rather sparse home—mean and lean, that’s how she liked life.

  Strangely, Chloe did have an inexplicable yearning for one small decoration to hang by the front door—a bluebird. The hunt for an object of desire always made her mall wanderings more purposeful. Target had silver birds, Kmart red and gold ones, but blue birds were rare. Myer did have a blue one but it was very expensive and not quite right. No, they just don’t make the perfect bluebird, thought Chloe, and secretly she was pleased. With her art skills she knew she could make a dozen birds, like the red robins she made at primary school with seedpods, cotton wool and a dash of paint—too easy. Chloe appreciated that in fairytales the task has to be a challenge, so she continued her fruitless search for the illusive, if not unique, ornament.

  The months leading up to Christmas had been a confusing time of exciting change and painful loss. The wonder of a new studio to play in was totally eclipsed by the sudden death of her beloved dog in November. Chloe felt devastated. As one female friend coolly observed ‘You’re not good at loss, are you?’ ‘Who is?’ she cried when it was far too late to be heard.

   Chloe held on tightly to everything she valued, but life and love still slipped through her fingers. Even Pete, her most recent partner, had recently departed. Like a large lumbering pelican, one October day he filled his bill with a few belongings and flew off along the coastline diminishing into the distance. ‘When money goes love flies out the window’—and it did. Pete’s temporary position at the local fishery had turned cold so he left for warmer climes; Chloe didn’t want to move and he felt ruffled by her inertia and apparent need to nest. Not that procreation was on Chloe’s agenda.

    ‘Don’t mention it!’ she would warn her family and friends. She had too many projects on the go: art exhibitions, future travel and besides, her recent relationships hadn’t lasted more than a couple of months each. If you could have it all where would you put it, she reassured herself.

On Christmas Eve, Chloe received a call from the couple next-door to come over for drinks.

   ‘I’d love to—give me a few minutes to change.’

Excited by the impromptu invitation, Chloe pranced around and sang in her sultriest voice a medley of ‘Cabaret’ and ‘Blackbird’. Why sit alone in your room … Come hear the music play … She dressed in a black strapless lace blouse, black jeans and added just a touch of festive red with high-heels and matching lipstick … Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly … Into the light of the dark black night…

   The Payne’s house appeared as a beacon with its party lights, sparkling decorations and thrill of visitors. Chloe was warmly welcomed with a crystal flute of icy champagne. The couple’s daughters Philly and Sophie were playing with a Russian Blue kitten near the flashing tree. Chloe bent down to talk to them and stroke the cat.

   ‘Would you like to try a dip?’ came a deep voice from above.

   Chloe looked up to see a large bowl of guacamole precariously close to her, an arm extended from an iridescent-blue shirt and a friendly very pleasant face.

   ‘I’m Troy. I’m renting the white house down the hill. You must be Chloe, the arty neighbour.’

Chloe stood up, dipped a cracker into the bowl and said, ‘Hi. Welcome to the neighbourhood.  

  I’m new here too … love it … so peaceful by the sea.’

  Troy wasn’t a peacock but he certainly was mesmerising in shot-silk.

  ‘So you paint?’ he inquired.

  ‘Yes, I dabble.’

  ‘Well, you’d appreciate the city lights from the balcony.’

  Chloe felt the cool ocean breeze on her bare shoulders as he slid open the glass door. The full moon burnished the ocean creating silver highlights on the otherwise mass of black water.  Chloe sipped her drink and breathed in the ambience of the evening. A little ambivalent about making conversation with the towering Troy she finally exhaled. ‘The lights are stunning … as a child I saw them as a sky of bubbles that I wanted to immerse myself in.’

   ‘I can see you think like an artist.’

   ‘And … what do you do?’

   ‘I’m in the aviary section at the Zoo.’

   ‘Ah, so you probably breed—’

  ‘Well, not personally … not yet that is,’ Troy laughed. ‘I’m working with a team that’s breeding the ‘Cyanocitta Cristata’ … better known as the rare Blue Jay from—’

Chloe’s empty glass slid between her fingers and exploded into a shower of tiny shards as it hit the tiles. A small child’s piecing scream ricocheted in her ears.

   ‘Are you all right, Chloe?’

  ‘I thought I heard—oh, it’s probably nothing.’ Glancing back through the misted glass doors, she could see the party in full flight. Troy brushed the broken glass aside with his shoe.

Chloe quickly revived the conversation. ‘The … the bluebird … please tell me about the bluebird.’

  ‘The good old bluebird of happiness,’ he smiled affectionately. ‘You know, it’s also the universal symbol of hearth and home … and birth.’

  Chloe shivered as she looked up at the stars.

  ‘What about a dead one?’ she asked flatly.

  ‘A dead bluebird? Well, I’m no Jungian psychologist, but I’ve read somewhere it represents a loss of innocence … a shift from a younger naive state,’ he lowered his already deep voice, ‘to an older wiser self.’

  Seagulls skimmed the night sea.

Troy tenderly led Chloe back into the immediacy of the party. In the intermittent light she saw a vigorous flapping of blues—then myriad bluebirds weaving between the guests, circling the children, avoiding the cat, nibbling the food and nesting in the luminous tree. Chloe watched in amazement as the large glass panes began to vibrate uncontrollably. The birdsong was reaching a shattering crescendo as Troy struggled to hear Chloe whisper, ‘Be very careful what you wish for this Christmas.’

Judith Bruton ©

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Dr Judith L. Bruton
Visual Artist & Writer
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