LORENA

Beneath the Weeping Willow, A Yankee Soldier and his Southern Belle meet again...

Under a weakening winter sun, naked branches of the weeping willow cast their circle of woven shadows; beneath this sheltering canopy, a woman smoothed her skirt to sit and wait.

Pale hands swept wrinkles from the calico ruffles. The fabric was worn, its miniature floral pattern faded from red to a pale pink on white. Nonetheless, the cotton expanse was neatly kept, only slightly stained at the edges of the skirt, as was to be expected from walking down by the river. Shivering, she pulled her knitted shawl tighter. She opened her antique wicker basket and spread a dusty checkered cloth. It received an earthen jug of muscadine wine and a loaf of sourdough bread; from the jug she poured an offering in anticipation of meeting, singing in a low, soft voice:

The years creep slowly by, Lorena
The snow is on the grass again
The sun's low down the sky, Lorena
The frost gleams where the flowers have been

She heard his song answer:, far away and faint at first, a plaintive tenor, rising on the wind:

But my heart beats on as warmly now
As when the summer days were nigh
The sun can never dip so low
Or down affections cloudless sky

her heart skipped a beat as around the trunk of the ancient willow she saw his black hair, white rays of the lowering sun illuminating each waving lock. From the shadows, the rest of his face emerged; a straight grecian nose, impossibly blue eyes and boyish grin greeted her, framed by a neat black goatee.

She beamed: "Come to me, my love!"

Hiding behind the trunk, he almost seemed to be a part of the tree, but at last he stepped out, revealing slender frame swallowed up the blue wool of his jacket and brown woolen breeches of his uniform. Brushing the dust from his brass buttons, he attempted to make himself as presentable as war would allow him. Elegant despite the gunpowder stains and callouses, his long fingers clasped a sprig of bright yellow summer flowers, the stems arching gracefully in echo of his own form.

"You returned." He smiled again, surprised dimples forming in his rugged cheeks, genuine wonder at her appearance.

"How could I not? You are here! I will always come back for you, as long as you are here." She patted the checkered cloth and he sat down across from her, his flower in hand.

"A storm is coming, and a cold wind blows." Peering through the branches to the sky, he noted the cirrus clouds, white horsetails racing ahead of low gray billows. "You are indeed brave, my Lady to come here in the face of the maelstrom." He admired the deep purple of the muscadine wine: "But back home may be no better. Who knows what they would say, should your family find you've been in the presence of a Yankee Soldier?"

"They have never known, and they will never know!" Tears glimmered, the presence of memory. "I have hidden you here, just like I have hidden you in my heart."

He stretched his long legs before him, catlike. Leaning back on one elbow, the brass buttons of his Union jacket parted, revealing a yellowed homespun shirt beneath, and the dark curled hairs of his chest peeked through the open front. "Does it pain you? I wouldn't have you suffering in silence, alone and lonely. Nor would I want you to be punished for your love to me..." He reached out to gently touch the rim of the jar, and the wine within rippled.

Her heart fluttered; "No! They never knew. But even if they did, I would still come. I will always be here for you - "

He beamed again, and leaned back to lie upon the cloth. The light around him became golden, the hues warmer and brighter as the sun lowered beneath the high wispy clouds; "I don't know what I would have done, if you hadn't found me that day." Holding out his hand, the flower bobbed, its green leaves shining. The air around him shimmered. "I would have died alone, beneath this tree, never to know your touch, never to have seen your face -" He turned towards her, eyes alive with desire: "You bound my wounds and bound my heart, my fiery Southern Belle!"

Lying there in the lowering rays of evening, he became the man she met so long ago, wounded and bleeding, a Minie ball lodged in his lung. Blood now stained the white shirt, soaking the woollen coat, leaking into the soil below. His breaths became laboured, his skin pale, holding out a hand to her in supplication. She reached out to him in pity and love, but he seemed to recede into the shadow of the willow-

the light about him abruptly shifted. The man now healed, his coat and shirt cleansed of blood. His brass buttons gleamed in the evening sun, bright and golden as his smile - "you touched my cheek, and I felt my blood stir. You touched my heart, and even through a bullet pierced my flesh, all I could feel was the warmth of your hands, and the light in your eyes. The fever of my body was replaced with a fever of the soul, a heat that can't be cured by healing!"

He sighed, not from sorrow, but joy, yearning in the presence of pleasure promised:

"Ever since that day, I have waited for you here, bound by chains more precious than gold, the weight of sweetness more desirable than any freedom without you-" the blue eyes blazed:

"You hid me here, forever a prisoner of your Love!"

A wail welled up from the hollows, the river bottoms singing the song of the winter wind. "Oh Charles, Charles, it has been so long!" Shivering in the chill, she lifted her gaze to his own, her warm brown of her eyes blurring with her tears.

"Not so long I can't remember. Not so long I can't meet you here. I made a vow and I've kept my vow - I would love you forever and I wait here for you until the day you are ready to come away with me!" Hair wild, he rolled towards her, his hands beckoning, open and hot: "Are you ready? Are you at last ready, my love?"

Trembling, she brushed away the dead grasses from a stone beneath the willow to reveal a name, etched long ago. She traced the letters, remembering a sunny summer day fifty years gone, a dying Yankee soldier, and the goldenrod blooming beneath a weeping willow. "There are those who will never understand." A blast of cold air whipped the branches of the tree, grains of sleet now drifting by on the frigid breeze...

Golden light poured from his fingertips. "Let them go, Lorena! They'll never know - they'll never understand what you meant to me! They'll never understand the fire you lit inside my heart, or the love you have given to me all these years." Lips trembling, he sang as he reached out to her:

There is a future! O, thank God
Of life this is so small a part
'Tis dust to dust beneath the sod
But there, up there, 'tis heart to heart!

Webster's lyrics coalesced in the dying sun, creating a halo around the soldier. Straining through the dimming light, his eyes became alive with the glow eternal: "Take my hand!"

She held out her arms, yearning, shaking -

he knocked the wine aside; the jar rolled, precious red liquid seeping into the soil beneath him. The flower pressed into her palm as his fingers gripped hers; she gasped as he leapt across the checkered cloth, pulling her close to entwine her in his warm embrace.

Loosing her hair, he pulled her thin white curls from their braid to become red and thick as the day they met. Tumbling beneath the willow, their lips met, and she felt his soul rush into hers -

the world became warm and bright. She could no longer feel the ice, or hear the wind. All around her, the earth was becoming beautiful, the sky the color of his eyes, the summer breeze as warm as his lips on hers...

the farmhands found her the next morning, lying atop his hand-carved headstone. Frozen beneath the weeping willow where she had buried him so long ago, she smiled, serene, her white hair tangled around the golden summer flower blooming in her withered hand.