The hum of strings sways waves through the drifty void, and we hold another in a heavy nuzzle. My chin weighs upon a shoulder, and my feet bear my legs. I run my fingers up another’s palm, and they bend their knuckles around mine. My arm is then slung above us, rousing the pivot of my body. As I spin, my lips splay finding others in embrace around the fire’s zeal, for a moment. And soon I am back to starlit eyes and warm breath, and my head washes in our fogging fervor.

There is no attention to the end until we find ourselves stranded under the Sun’s muggy rays peeking through the tall meadows, with some parent calling from some doorstep. We mosey for the bikes and say we’ll be back soon. Then we watch as soon dissolves into the enveloping blue, crackling on twisting gravel that nudges us to the river. We slip into the tender passing, never to meet the headwater or mouth; we only thank the tide for the small moment when we find it.

Somehow, we are lying in the passenger’s seat, towels underneath us, collecting the river’s remnants. And here, forever, I hold a velvet hand by the fire, pedal through the infinite countryside, and wade in the cosmic stream. And these echoes, with no beginning or end, breathe a grounding rhythm for our turbulent hearts. We may worry not about where we ought to be, instead protected by our wisp of sanctuary in the perilous river of time.