"There is time within."
"What?"
"There is time within," she repeated.
"Okay," he agreed slowly, as slowly as one can speak such a short word,
carefully weighing each sound. They went on, on the trail through the fields.
Wheat, oat, rye? He didn ́t know, he didn ́t care. Just one of a kind the whole damn way.
A sea of what would later become his bread or oatmeal; he hated oatmeal.
"Like a bored green sea." He pointed out, turning around, lifting his arms drowsily over his head. She now walked three steps ahead of him, and had not heard what he said.
Her bony body was very upright, as always; as always she walked with a steady pace, dragging her right leg only slightly behind.

Tac shhhh, tac shhhh, tac shhhh, tac shhhh.

Of course she made no sound walking on the dry earth, but that was how it sounded in his head. Wondering how many times he had seen her like this, from behind,
a little basket dangling from her suntanned, leatherlike left arm, he started a short run, big jumping steps to keep up with her.
"There you are."
"Your voice is like the sun," he replied to the warm look in her eyes.
"What are you crocheting?" Delicately he formed the last word, opened and closed his mouth as if he was building soap bubbles in it, thoughtful not to destroy them
on their way out into the world.
"I am knitting."
"I know," he smiled, "but isn ́t 'crocheting' a much more interesting word?"
He touched the soft grey wool. "What will it be, when it is ready?"
It felt so smooth and delicate that he had to put it to his face.
"Oh how I want to sink into this!" he purred, again as slow as he could.
The wool smelled like her hands and he was just closing his eyes when she took it back from him and walked on.

tac shhh. tac shhhhh, tac.

"Come on!"
"Hmm."
"It will be for you, to stop you from sinking."
shhhhhh. tac shhhh. tac shhhh. tac shhhh.

His jumping steps caught up with her.

The whole evening he heard the click-clack of her long needles
and when he got tired, he sat on her footstool and took her right leg in his hands,
gently stroking her calf.
"It is very late, are you not sleepy?"
"I ́ll stay up, but you go to bed."
She pressed his hands against her face, his wonderful hands,
thinking that if he would hold her face long enough, she would become
the most beautiful woman in the world.
"Do you know why I am limping? I stumbled over my fantasies."
After kissing his hands she took up the needles with the grey wool again.
"Dream of something nice."
When he had gone to bed, she went into the garden and walked.
Restless.
Gazing at the moon and the clouds she continued her work, which was
finished when she heard the dawn chorus of the birds.
She held out her left hand where a chickadee landed immediately.
He saw the blue package on the kitchen table and, as she was nowhere
to be found, he read the card on top of it :
"This is a wonderland of words, yet there are no words"
and he knew it was his to open.
The soft grey wings he held in his hands now smelled of her, of dew, of air
and sea and leaves and rain and sun and stars and moon and clouds
and he remembered her words as he put them on:

"There is time within."

A woman walks on the trail through the fields, dragging her right leg slightly behind.
She stops and shields her eyes against the sun to look at the flying birds :


It won ́t get you, when you are up there.
See how small we are.
Tiny trees, little houses
and I ́m just a point who might be gazing at the sky.