They came together to dance.
The air was heavy with mist in the clearing amid the pines. Aspen trees showed eerie white where they circled the uneven glen, sentinels to the singular occasion. It happened infrequently, the only witnesses the hawks and eagles and owls in the top most branches of the ancient trees and the smaller forest creatures that peeked from the shelter of low brush and tall grass. Little by little the mist dissipated, spreading itself thin over the soft mossy ground as the full moon rose up, up, up above, breaking through the clouds and clearing the sky. The air quivered electric. A wind rose high, swirling, making music of it’s own in the branches and the moon illuminated everything.
The doe arrived first, as white as the moon, moving with grace, head high, neck arched, sniffing the air for her companion. The buck soon followed from the opposite direction, his dark, black coat blending into the surroundings, proud, handsome, and fearless as he moved into the surround of light. They approached each other slowly, edging through the accumulation of pine needles and leaves that carpeted the edges of the space leaving only small sounds in their wake. Slowly, they moved forward toward each other and the mist rose up once again in a swift swirling eddy to hide them for a moment. When it fell away, pooling at their feet, they stood there, face to face, shed of their animal skins, without their disguises and defenses. Both souls tilted their heads to the sky, inhaling the air around them, still sensing their surroundings, yet defining their environment, before faces lowered and lips met.
The air around them sighed.
Shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, they began what they came to do, circling together to the voiceless tune played by the trees. A sway, a turn, heel and toe, their hands, familiar but alien, met and touched, traveled up arms to hold and steady themselves as they moved. Toes tender from disuse luxuriated in the moss beneath them, tickled each other as feet overlapped. And they smiled, their different dark eyes locked onto each other’s, unblinking; admiring; longing. Their time was finite and fragile, a thing so precious that it couldn’t be wasted on remembering when they had been together last, but was to be savored in the here and now.
And they danced.
They moved and trembled to their own music, to the music of the glen and the trees and the wildlife around them, to the crickets that lent their particular cadence. They pressed close, then moved apart, then pressed close yet again in their own rhythm, eyes locked, fingers twined, left and right. She rested her head on his shoulder for a moment, face against neck, breathing in the wild, human scent of him, so different from the feral perfume she knew. He buried his face in the tangle of her hair, rubbing against the silk of it, inhaling the intoxicating aroma of flowers and female. There was knowing in their gestures: fluency, fluidity. He cupped her face, cradled her head as they both looked to the sky once more and he saw the reflection of the moon in her eyes, fell in love with her all over again as he did every time they met in the protection of the glen under the auspices of the moon, where they could be their true selves and not the selves imposed on them. She looked up at him and smiled, then laughed, a sound that echoed off the mist and trees, a sound that superseded the music of nature, a sound that made him laugh with her.
Joy, light as air, sprang up around them in its myriad forms. Amorphous, amorous, it scampered and slid about their ankles, bit at their heels with soft, baby nips that compelled them dance faster, to bend and dip and swirl with abandon. On and on it went, a tango, a waltz, a dance exclusive to only to them, and as they spun and dived and leaned and bent, the mist mingled with the joy until all of it became oneness, a single thing, unique and unparalleled, until it overwhelmed itself and burst into a thousand bits of light, shattering throughout the glen, bursting upward, outward, in all directions to coat the moss and the sky and the trees surrounding.
Gently, they settled, parted, backed away from each other; one hand each caressing the arm of the other until only the tips of their fingers touched and a spark, small but strong, ignited and lit the glen once more before the mist returned to cover them, to cover the moon.
The air sighed around them.
When the mist dissolved, dissipated, the doe and the buck stood together on the mossy grass, heads inclined, her neck low, his neck bent over hers in protection. The sounds of the night rose up slowly once again, insinuating itself into their very breath, blanketing them as they shivered back into their feral selves. They stood together, side by side, desperately close in the light of the brilliant moon and awaited the dawn.
Only the crickets saw them smile.
