Circa 1858: Silver Lining

by Devin Bradley

Sing.

Child.

The hymns.

Let them lead.

Let them guide your heart.

Let the melody remember 

The forgotten words sung to you in your infancy.

They still exist somewhere deep inside you. Even if you cannot recall, your heart will. 

Follow the path of your elders, to the clearing in the forest. Take this candle so that it may light the way, should you ever fall behind. 

The blacksmith will cool his fires, and the saloon keeper will cork his open bottles. The tanner soaks the last of his hides for the night, while the sheriff unlocks the jail. All the townsfolk will come, leaving behind their doors wide open. 

They walk single file, their voices silent. Their footsteps silent. Look for their candles twinkling along and through the forest. Keep up. Each person travels the path in their own way, and they walk alone amongst all the others. You will too. With hidden tears and a heavy heart. Take with you dried meat and some biscuits and a skein of water to fill yourself when you feel empty. 

Miles and hours will pass, it will feel like a lifetime before you arrive. Take in your surroundings, give the night permission and let it wrap you in its embrace. And as it holds you, take deep breaths and breathe in the moon as it begins to rise. Breathe in the stars enveloping this shroud over the sky. Breathe in the chirps of crickets and frogs, the scurrying of lizards and field mice. Breathe in the fallen pinecones and the manzanita, the autumnal flowers of wild aster and goldenrod and Joe-Pye weed. These things will fill your lungs, calm your soul. Accept this gift, this mysterious night surrounding you.

You are a part of it now. Just as those in the steady line before you, these folks you think you know so well. Watch for the clearing. As you walk the path, the trees will become sparse before fading into the open. You will know this place by the pyre burning at the very center. Flames will reach up and up and up, keeping at bay the moon-shadows cast over the forming congregation. Each of the townsfolk will stand there, shoulder to shoulder, hand to hand, feet frozen to the ground and you will recognize friends and neighbors—though they give no acknowledgement of your presence. Don’t speak, child. Not yet. Fight back the tears that want to fall to the ground. A time will come for all of that, but not yet. Stand with the others and wait as the rest of the town trickles in. Lower your head and close your eyes and wait as the penitent child you are. You are not alone in these silent prayers of forgiveness. Soon, when the words dry like the well on the homestead, the last of townsfolk will arrive.

Wait... Calm yourself, child. All in due time. Breathe in the stillness and exhale the last of your troubles unto this world. Let your heart know peace. Here. Now. In this moment. Feel the earth beneath your feet, the chill of the full moon air. Feel each fold and the layers of your clothes, how each fiber intertwines to become one. Feel the prayers of others around and the warmth of the fire before you. Know that the night no longer holds sway. You belong, you have arrived. Leave your eyes closed and your head lowered and become fully part of the collective beating of hearts. A people, one, together in time. In this moment. Only then will the song begin to take form. It will rise and grow from the empty spaces. It will fill that place between breaths, take hands and pull them together. It will still the noises far beyond the clearing. Listen for the sound of one voice rising from beyond the pyre. Listen for the sound of two voices. For the sound of three. They will cascade together and will wash over you and then, my child, then will come your time to sing. It is Well and Be Thou My Vision and All Creatures Of Our God and King, one folding into the other and you will sing each hymn because every inch of you remembers. Sing! Sing! Sing! Be in this gathering of melodies and watch as the songs tumble to the Earth. The words fall like bricks and the melody like mortar and around the clearing a wall is built. These projections of faith come without echo or reverberation. Every tone, every sound, every word, nothing ventures back into the woods nor does anything touch the heavens. 

Clouds will creep over the sky. Without a breeze, without a sound, without a warning. Black masses with silver edges to outline each intruding shape. Sung in by your voices. The stars vanish, one by one, nothing left to navigate you home. Shadows disappear into shadows while the pyre before you casts no light, it merely burns. Where once images might flicker and dance in the night’s firelight, now only darkness remains. The clouds will push, will shove, will press into each other until it seems they can no longer remain suspended in the air. The songs have brought them in, the melody holding them in place. Continue to lift your voice and the words will soon lift up and become raindrops and the raindrops will fall like stars tumbling down. Like silver. Like light. As if the full moon itself has melted into one singular waterfall and here you stand beneath it. The fire will grow taller and taller in the coming wave, the rain like kerosene upon it. Each of the townsfolk will shudder, a flash of lightning moving from one to the next. Your feet will begin to shake, your knees pumping, kept in motion as if by some invisible coupling rod. Your whole body in a trance. Now is the time. Now! Open your eyes. Look around you. At the fire and the rain and the people with whom you share this space. Look beyond, into the clearing, past this congregation. Watch as the rain takes shape in achromatic outlines across the perimeter. The top of heads will appear and the broad plain of shoulders, the water will trickle down, and you will see moments of cheekbones and a nose, lips and ears.  A chest and torso will appear, as will legs and feet. This shimmering visage of a person. Of people. Of those who have gone. So many souls outlined in the rain. Standing. Watching. Unmoved and unmoving. They have followed you here, as they follow everywhere without your notice. Invisible in their wandering. Each of you singing, each of you who have come, watched over. Now, in this rain, a singular body of souls. The songs will come to an end, and the weeping will begin. Mothers over their children and husbands over wives. A long wail through the storm and across the heavenly plane and into the blackest night. These silver forms will lift their heads and silver waters will wash over their eyes and they will cry silver tears as they know they are being witnessed as if for the first time, remembered in a way unlike any memory before. You, too, will weep. It is something you can not control. It will happen, then, in that moment…

This, child—this is where you will see me again.

> This piece has been written in strict syllabic adherence to the Fibonacci sequence, sometimes referred to as the golden spiral. It is meant to spiral both in thought and existence. The sequence in this piece follows the syllable count of 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610.   

🜁🜄🜂🜃

Devin Bradley (he/him) is an author and educator.  He earned his Master of Arts in English and Creative Writing from Southern New Hampshire University and currently teaches high school English and creative writing in the foothills of Northern California, where he resides with his wife and two sons. His debut novel, Beyond the Fallen Timber, is an exploration of loneliness and life in the mountains of northern California.