Whidbey

When your head hurt and you laid it down on the spring-smelling dirt, I thought you might be Jacob, or Rachel, or Leah.  The wind washed over the tall grass and it waved - all golden-ocean-like - as though we were in some impossibly romantic movie.  You told me it looked like where you grew up in Ohio.  We agreed it was the most beautiful thing we'd ever seen, and you told me that you never want to go back to Ohio.

I sat down beside you on one of the paths through the tall grass, and from there I could barely see over the top of it.  The dog didn't stick to the well-cut paths.  He bounded like some enormous rabbit through and over it.  Up he went, then down.  Up, down.  He came to the paths occasionally, and then only to check on us before continuing on after the songbirds and the garter snakes.  And I thought what a lovely Dante he would make, or Beatrice.

When we spotted a pine tree a little ways away, we decided to move into its shade.  Gradually your head cooled and stopped hurting so much, and again your dog rushed over to make sure we weren't leaving him.  As the day wore on we both spoke less and less, each for our separate reasons.

And then we went to the beach just before leaving, and listened to the tiny and smoothed-over stones, their bodies all shell, all gray skin prickling against each other with a hushed clatter.  The island itself seemed to quiet down as the sun moved lower, when one huge and out-of-place wave rushed up and soaked us through with icy water.  You yelped - a beautiful cry of fear, I thought.  And the wave slid out, pulling with it stones shivering like stars.