It was out of season and the gates were locked but we pulled the car off the road and climbed the fence, letting the night's fog envelop us, and the world vanish, and the pain disappear along with a thousand years.

There are places you return too. Not the scenes of crimes, if you're smart. Not the scenes of triumphs either, for what would that be but a pale reflection, guaranteed to disappoint? But the places of sanctuary - where escape was made even momentarily real - those are timeless.

Below us the waves read the insistent poetry of history. Above us a Bealtaine moon struggled to tint the sky orange. Briefly the wind rustled the grass, telling us to be quiet, to rest, to be at peace.

Ira Socol