The Land and the Sky

There is a legend of a man and a woman who lived long ago. The man loved the woman more than anything and she loved him in return. He was a calm man, someone who knew the purpose of it all, who could see the wide view. But his love could not rest. She wanted to explore and run and dance and scream. Eventually, his true love left him and became the sky. He cried so much that he created all of the oceans and the rivers in the world. He walked so far looking for her that he created valleys where once there was only prairie land. He called out to her so loudly that volcanoes erupted creating islands in the middle of the oceans.

Eventually the man stopped looking and fell asleep forever. His body became the mountains and his eyes were two great seas. Children played around him and families thrived upon his gifts to the world. Yet deep inside the land, even to this day, there exists a sadness. The mountains reach up unable to feel the warmth of her cheek or the caress of her hand.

So the sky takes up the warm tears of the man and keeps them close. She hugs them in great clumps and weaves pears and veils from them. But when she can no longer stand the pain, she lets the tears drop down again as they fell so long ago. And the tears return to the man and his oceans and rivers and many years of longing.