The Llama Song
by Donald G. Redman
I was up late Saturday night. I couldn’t sleep for thoughts
of you were invading my dreams like a horde of Tatars.
Easing from the bedside so as not to arouse the woman lying
next to me buried beneath layers of blankets, I gathered my robe and tiptoed
out into the darkness of my house.
Safe in the kitchen, I grabbed a small snifter and a bottle
of cognac and went into the den to seek you out. And there I found you, tucked
inside my favorite poetry book – the same tattered book I brought with me when
we stole that weekend to your family’s beach house.
I tried recalling some of the poems we liked, but they all
seemed to blend together. I do remember you were fond of Walt Whitman.
It was getting really late and I thought of returning to the
woman beneath the blankets. Her slumber was intense; sounds of her snoring
echoed down the dark hallway and reverberated off my blackened heart.
The cognac cried out for one more sip and so I obliged.
I scanned past a few more odes, telling myself each would be
the last, and then I came across “The Llama Song.” Suddenly, you were stretched
out across the couch next to me, your head resting on my lap. I saw your
eyebrows, how they arch in such a taunting fashion. I saw your slightly crooked
smile and I felt a warmth no cognac could ever provide.
You remember “The Llama Song” don’t you? It wasn’t really
called that, but we gave it that name. It was a poem about a couple who realized
they were falling in love with each other while still in other relationships.
There was a verse something like, “I will not let you love me, but my love for
you is so intense.”
They tried valiantly to fight their feelings and you told me
you could relate; that you were being torn between two emotions, one to start
life anew with me and the other to stay put. I agreed, saying I felt like Dr.
Doolittle’s two headed llama and you laughed. “Pushmi-pullyu! This will be our
Llama Song.”
The poem ended with the couple caving to love and running
off together to spend eternity sipping nectar at the feet of the gods. Or
something like that.
But you aren’t one to completely cave are you? You said “The
Llama Song” was ultimately a fairytale; there are no happy endings in the
affairs of the heart. People are tempted by affairs to feel alive again, but
eventually you fall from heaven and are no longer sipping nectar at the feet of
the gods, but mopping the kitchen and mowing the grass.
You said I’d get bored and eventually find someone new to
sing “The Llama Song.” No, you wouldn’t
be running away with me, you said.
I was as crushed as any mortal could ever be. “Look at me!”
I pleaded. “My head is bursting through the sky of love. My hair is dripping
with nectar. Love me!”
“But how can I tell if you will ever love me again as you do
now?”
Of course I said I would love you forever and again, but
that question still haunts me to this day. It’s the question I was mulling when
I arose from bed to seek you out.
I corked the cognac and returned it to the shelf. Through
the bay window I could see that a new day was wrestling for the reigns from the
night, but the fix was in and it was just a matter of time before the nighttime
surrendered.
The corner streetlight cast a grey umbrella of light over my
lawn. I could see the grass was high and weeds had sprung up as if in a race to
tower the trees. For a brief moment thoughts of you vanished, only to be
replaced with those of lawnmowers.
Suddenly, the snoring of the woman buried beneath layers of
blankets stopped. I cursed the silence.
And then it started back up like a trusty lawnmower cranks
up after having choked momentarily on a clump of grass.
It was in that blissful moment between night and day that I
understood “The Llama Song.” Just as am asking you, I had once asked the woman
buried beneath the blankets to love me. My head had burst through the sky of
love. My hair had dripped with nectar. But how could I tell if I would ever
love her again as I did then?
I wanted to cry. I was weak with sadness and it felt as if
my legs would surrender, but I was braced by the snores coming from the woman
buried beneath the blankets.
I stumbled back to bed. I needed the rest for soon I’d be
mowing the lawn.
Copyright 2012 Donald G. Redman All Rights Reserved Illustration by Donald G. Redman.
