Notes from a Time Traveller by Elke Stevens

A silent yearning echoes through a window of time when I feel you from my presence, as if I left and lost a part of me and what I love. To whom do I write? Only my heart knows when the twilight hours whisper secrets, of a dance between dusk and dawn as dreams drift in my sleepless eyes, floating from one night to the other.

I miss them, for whom I left a tear in the afternoon stroll. As I wandered, the tree and its pond mirrored the stillness of my heart, wondering if the tree resting in the peaceful water could feel the life it is supporting, the shelter it gives to the young swans and ducks, the shade it creates, and the nutrition it provides as it waves through the seasons.

I left a place that, in the summer, has a lack of darkness, summer never sleeps, where twilight lingers with an inexhaustible feast of wind, a wild seaside and rugged cliffs; what an otherworldly place it was, where tradition has its chokehold on every age, not a person left unimpressed.

The wind sang through the rugged cliffs, and the sound of ancient voices sweet was the music I heard, as it contained lessons to be learned. I seemed to remember the dreams of the past, pursuing childhood memories that faded so fast when a bonny lassie stimulated me to be distracted from the pursuit of purpose. Beneath the pink sky’s fading light, I glimpsed the tangled threads of fate, choices left unkissed.

I will never forget the pink sky as I mourn for the regret of the actions not taken, the delusion in the sacrifice and offering of my soul in the name of martyr for the greater good, and the understanding of antipathy in contrast with shared sympathy.  With every nightfall, I realise that some lessons are etched not in words but in the quiet spaces between them.

The place I left behind remains a shadow in my mind, an echo of a story with missing chapters and pages never written.

©️ Elke T.B. Stevens 08/08/2024