Stewart Dawson
The Whispers
“Love does not insist on its own way”
(1 Cor. 13:5)
“Thank you, sir.” She took the bag of groceries out of his arms and put them on the hood of the car. She put her arms around him for a hug in the cold winter evening and she said, “Thank you, sir.” They had just returned to the cabin after spending the afternoon inner-tubing at the state park. The car had bogged down in the snow and Alex spent an hour digging it out with his hands. They went to the store and bought some groceries to share with the other people at the cabin. She hugged him and said, “Thank you, sir.” The words that were like a distant whisper all those long years ago still haunt and beckon him to this very day.
It was after dark up there on Garrett Bay in January of way back then. Deep snow covered the ground and thick ice went out over the bay like a quiet, empty dance floor. The air was cold but there was no wind. The trees of the forest behind them were still and silent and the ice on the bay was like distance and desolation. She took the bag out of his arms and hugged him. It surprised and kind of frightened him, but for a tiny moment in his life there was great silence and peace. He said, “Let’s go into the cabin and get warm.” He has always wished he had said something else. There were other people in the cabin and soon that moment would become a forever type memory.
The words that were almost a whisper drifted past him and into the woods behind the ice. Sometimes he thinks that he could go back there and stand in those woods and still hear those words. But she is gone thirty two or more years ago. The little cabin is long gone also, torn down and replaced with a big fancy house that no one ever seems to live in.
* * * * *
All the people in the cabin slept on one big bed made from all the mattresses in the cabin. They were spread out on the floor in the living room because there was only a small gas furnace and a fireplace in there and it was cold outside. The people were hippies from a time when it was fun to sleep together for a week in January on the floor of a cabin in the north woods when it was very cold. That night he wished he could make love with her, but he couldn’t. He loved her very much. So much that it frightened him. But he slept next to her every night. All the hippies were very young.
On one of the mornings, when he opened his eyes, she was already awake. She handed him a book she was reading. It was a book of poetry by Walt Whitman. She told him to read one of the poems. The poem was called, “To You.” It was a long poem and it began, “Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams.” He lay there silently reading the poem. The poem only whispered itself to him and he didn’t hear very much of it.
He didn’t hear the poem when it whispered, “Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem.” He didn’t hear the poem when it whispered, “ O I have been dilatory and dumb, I should have made my way straight to you long ago.” He didn’t hear the poem when it whispered, “I will leave all and come and make the hymns of you, none has understood you, but I understand you.” And he didn’t hear the poem when it whispered, “O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you!”
Outside, it was only five degrees above zero but the sun was shining and there was no wind. He asked her if she would like to go for a walk out on the ice and she said yes. The ice went out on the bay as far as you could see. It seemed like it went on forever. There were some used Christmas trees sticking out of the ice like strange evergreen popsicles. It was a surreal landscape as if Dali’ or Magritte had been there and just painted it right in front of you. He told her that he thought it was very peculiar that there were Christmas trees out there and she told him that ice fishermen used them to mark their ice fishing holes. Off in the other direction was an ice fishing shanty with smoke rising from a small stack. While they were walking, the ice expanded and contracted and noisy fractures ran through it like cold commuter trains coming and going. They could hear the fractures approaching and going past them and then disappearing off into the distance to the next station. He wanted to hold her hand.
They walked over to the shanty and knocked to say hello. The fishermen invited them in to get warm. The fishermen didn’t see very many people wandering around out there but they were friendly and could tell that he loved the girl very much. She said thank you for the visit and they walked for a ways further on the ice. Gazing out across the ice and away from the land, it seemed so vast. He wished that they could just keep walking. He was holding hands with her in his mind and she was walking away without him on the ice. They talked about this and that. He has always wished that they had talked about something else. Then they walked back because they were getting hungry and it was lunch time. She was so pretty and her beauty shouted to him. But he was too young to hear it.
He didn’t hear the poem when it whispered, “Whoever you are! Claim your own at any hazard!” Now he is much older and she is gone so long ago and the poem loudly shouts to him, “Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what you are picks its way.” Now he has heard the whispers shout to him a thousand times.
This story was written inside the whisper and it can only be heard at a place that has changed and is no longer the same. It is a tiny space in the great North Woods that only Alex knows about. And only he can hear it.