L E V I A T H A N S E A : ....s

It goes like this: the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift...
the baffled King composing Hallelujah; Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah...
... it's not a cry you can hear at night, it's not somebody who's seen the light,
it's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah; Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah...

She bled and he for her! o! to widen the veins, to blister the arteries, to vomit, to gasp, to scream! o! all these facets of being, these strange unknowing walks! the truths of ages, of ages! ai! the truths of long ages, of a world not unlike this but so different, so strange! They were not meant for this world; they had never been meant for this world! no, not they for the deceit and gracelessness! no, not they for the untruths and legends! for they, these two halves of a single whole, a great living Promise - a bond-share, a hope! they had not been made to live in such a world as this! the darkness was theirs, had always been theirs, the strange twisting world of twilight; the strange unseeing world of shadow; the strange deep world of midnight! The bright stallion, the russet mare! mated of a past they could not remember, destined for a future they could not ascertain! Her pain was his own, fruitless and incendiary - - it ripped from him land-love, it tore from him memory, and he was cast to the water as she herself, beautiful - silver - shining golden! And there, in the water, was found absolution: a russet balm, soft and blissful, free-floating and weightless beneath a too-heavy hand. He could not come to her, he could not soothe the aching; it was not his, no! the darkness was hers, was theirs, but he for the twilight! he for the bright light of day! for dappled lime upon rainforest trees and boundless walks in scented shade! Lo, and the stallion found within himself the strength to weep, screaming painless litanies of forever and yesterday - - and the past fell upon him as never it had, sudden and unwelcome, and he was made to feel small before the rising of the world - - small, before the rising of the waters - - small before the prophecies he would fulfill: for he was Oiolossë, lost, wandering; he was Oiolossë, Child and Father, King and Peasant; he was Oiolossë, a Promise and a Lie - - and she, Icamiaba, the only one he knew would understand.

From the waters he drew, shining -- slippery silver, a fish, a myth, a Kelpie; and she, upon the riverbed, her mane spread beneath the sand, the sand! it clung to his forelegs as he fell, diving into the darkness of the soil. He fell at her side, boundless and extreme, his dark wise eyes red - - they sought her own, finding the emerald and staying, lost in deep places within himself; she, her breathing in tandem of his own, soothed his brow and made him whole. But this was not completion - this was truth, a Promise: he understood then, crippled at the side of a part of him he could never assimilate, that there was far more beyond destiny; and at that he lifted his bright, watery head and laid it upon her own, comforting what little he could. Two halves, interlocking upon the shore of a sullen river - - two halves, lost for ages and forgotten with time - - two halves finding that, once together, the pieces no longer fit with perfection; no! life and memory had dealt hard blows to the creatures still upon the sand, lost in a memory they no longer shared.

He might have died for her then; no longer - - alike and yet different, he wept upon Icamiaba's neck, the tears finding themselves last upon her wet pelt. They understood, but only so much; they understood - - but never as they once had. "Icamiaba - - Icamiaba..." His words were broken; he could speak no more than her name.