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searingedrockThere was a gate once. All angles and ragged wood it leaned slightly, one hinge rusting and the latch didn't fit into the bar anymore. It hung open most times on warm still days and on gusty hot days it swung tiredly into the dent right above its catch with a shuddering bumping noise.
There was a time in hot stillness and radiating heat when a hand, soft with youth, pushed on it, gently. Creaking, it swayed, swung aside and it said with a quiet creaking, 'Who is there? Who is so kind?'. The hand answered by resting, holding, and drew away slowly. After the hand followed a rustling and another softness, the brush of cotton against jagged wood. There was no snarling on the gate; the fabric slid slowly over and across and around; the gate stood only, quietly and wonderingly at this new thing. After the hand had passed it pulled the gate to and lifting the latch, placed it firmly in its catch.
The gate knew only what touched its rough countenance and waited patiently for another sign of this new thing. It felt the warm wet trickling of dogs and the streamless tiny battering of dust and the spattering of rain and impatient mens' hands and boots, its hinges only creaking in reproach. And when the wind blew it banged ceaselessly in tired anger. But in evenings it remembered the softness and hung open silently, waiting and wondering.
There was a time in hot stillness and radiating heat when a hand, soft with youth, pushed on it, gently. Creaking, it swayed, swung aside and it said with a quiet creaking, 'Who is there? Who is so kind?'. The hand answered by resting, holding, and drew away slowly. After the hand followed a rustling and another softness, the brush of cotton against jagged wood. There was no snarling on the gate; the fabric slid slowly over and across and around; the gate stood only, quietly and wonderingly at this new thing. After the hand had passed it pulled the gate to and lifting the latch, placed it firmly in its catch.
The gate knew only what touched its rough countenance and waited patiently for another sign of this new thing. It felt the warm wet trickling of dogs and the streamless tiny battering of dust and the spattering of rain and impatient mens' hands and boots, its hinges only creaking in reproach. And when the wind blew it banged ceaselessly in tired anger. But in evenings it remembered the softness and hung open silently, waiting and wondering.
