Spring winter - a missive from Heaven

Campbell,

Heaven is beautiful. I'm enjoying it very much. But there is not frost, or sunshine - because all that is just is. So it's kind of like custard, with everything that you've ever loved in it. Which is all very nice, but sometimes I do crave that sweet smell of a daises in springtime, you know?

What I really crave from earth is the sight of trees. You know how much I love their branches, especially the way, when you get really close to them, they WHISPER EVERYTHING they've got to say to you, in that way that makes your head just rest against their trunks, because to be any other way with them would be dishonourable?


Shhh.... say their leaves. The breeze is their translator. Ok, I've always said. I have nothing to say. My words are just noise. And then they start to speak. When you understand that, and they speak into your belly and legs and arms like a million tiny spiders putting down anchors inside your limbs and it's the most precious feeling on earth. Except it's more precious than that.

All the sea has flooded you and you cannot distinguish salt from skin from gulls' cries and sweet country guitar strings. "Play my feet," I whisper to the trees. And they laugh and they laugh and they laugh and say:

Don't be so daft.

***

For when I was dying, and for those who are thinking about it

When all the world scuttles, when your feet are limp and your heart beats through your head, and your head is full and limp at the same time, and you think you are going to die, remember my hand, as soft as sunlight on leaves, hushing your pulse, saying just go up to where it's open and there's no need to die now. There's no need to die now.

We choose when we die.

Sometimes. It depends on the circumstances. But both times I thought I was going to die, I didn't because there was a very little strong flame that kept burning the dark. And it smoked and it smoked and it smoked, as if I were underground in a black chamber where only the smoke was light; like - now I can see - your laughter when it's all dark.

I did think I was dying, because I was. And you held my feet, and kept me from shooting off. Because there are people here I love, and I'm not ready to die. Not yet. I mean, I know I'll never "die". That doesn't exist. But for peope here; if I'm not in my body, I'm not here.