Sisters

/ Daniel Swearingen


Before there was Stephen King and “The Shining“, there was the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, and three sisters from Georgia who made a holiday in July of 1922.

Tessie say’s Elsie, it’s such a warm day, much warmer in the Rockies, the sun’s closer they say. Mary holds her dress high to step over a stone, say’s she, it’s not the land of cotton, but I don’t miss our home. The air it’s right for small talk, of what should have been, a bit of gin drinking, with tonic mixed within. Beyond the western terrace, the valley golden lays, behind the haunted walls of luxury, the rocks climb to where eagles stay. The evening grows much closer, as evenings always do, Mary looks at Elsie, what’s a girl to do? I’ve just been so lonely, since we left our boys, do you think they miss us. Hush dear now, says Tessie, they really have no choice. The sisters watch the sun set, crooked down it strays, Elsie says to Mary, it reminds me of our ways, as it goes towards Grand Lake as it goes away.

Tessie hears “Claude Debussy”, the piano in the dark, something from the ballroom, where music is an art. “Nocturnes” playing softly, while near her sisters lay, it’s been a day in Estes, where no one knows their names. Shadows play so distant, from a different time, once upon a small town, when all in life was fine. Outside time is moving under stars that play, someone mixing magic along the milky way. All is where it should be except a dark shadow on the stairs. A moving fist of darkness, a dameon of past care.

Elsie wakes to sunrise, a coldness in the room, her sisters are missing, for a moment she holds a fearful swoon. What if they decided to leave her here alone, and travel back to Georgia, to let the boys be not left to roam. But that would be so silly, for together they have strayed, and then she hears Tessie giggle from the doorway, and she’s okay. Another day in heaven, up where graces stray, up where a guilty soul, can hear angels say it’s okay. For here they are just sisters, women joined by heart, never would they let each other suffer from another’s harm. What they have together, muses in a way, better their sin forgotten, upon this sunny day. This sunny day.

Tessie say’s Elsie, it’s such a warm day, much warmer in the Rockies, the sun’s closer they say. 02.03.2018 – דָּנִיֵּאל

50 thoughts on “Sisters”

  6. Pingback: Sisters | Campbells World

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