Cresting the peak of the mountain,
The Wanderers stopped their wagon for a moment,
To take in the glory before their eyes,
Great mountains all around,
The bases of these monoliths of time shrouded by clouds and mist,
Hiding their true size,
When the clouds were shot through by the wind,
It completed their effect,
It was as if the mountain peaks were islands,
Protrutions from an ocean of soft white.

They had traveled for days,
Their horses sore,
Treacherous was their way,
But the reward could not be ignored,
A prize of knowledge and lore,
Pieces of puzzles that they needed,
For solving it had evaded both of them for so long.

Their reasons for answers were different,
Brought together by chance,
But it was as if their fates intertwined,
Curling around one another like creeping vines until they would not, could not be separated.

One was an individual formed from facts and an urge to adventure,
Away from family for the first real time,
She was the summation of the terrerial,
Things as solid as the wooden boards beneath her feet,
The other was formed by instinct and an urge for purpose,
Experienced in the world and it showed,
He was the summation of the ethereal,
The abstract, like the legends and folk tales of old.

The fought for different reasons, yet the end goals were the same,
Two individuals bound down a path of hardships and toil,
Trials and tribulations that neither could imagine was in store.

But it was something both knew could be conquered,
For touched by fate were they,
As they got their horses going again,
They descended down the path,
Into the mists,
Into the horror and unknown.

A singular spark
Igniting a small amount of kindling,
From there it feeds,
The worst and most terrible flames can be caused by the smallest of embers.

It hits you like a semitruck,
One that is loaded with lead weights and ******* bees,
It's like a switched is flipped and your mind is transported to an earlier time,
To when you were younger and more brash,
When the calm flame that resides within you rages into a towering inferno that threatens to burn anything that stands in its way.

Past goals that you once thought impossible to reach now seem trivial,
And that you can now blow through them like their made of wet tissue paper.

Your hands start to shake like nothing else,
Not from fear,
But excitement,
It's like all your senses crank up to 11 and beyond,
Everything is crisp and vivid.

You're ******,
Your not sure at what,
But you know you're ******,
And it's not a spatula anger,
It's the kind of rage that people are wary of,
For it's one that is tempered by calculated thoughts and an even rationale.

The real dangerous kind.

You need to get up,
To do something,
Anything.

But sometimes the inferno will burn everything up,
Leaving only smoldering ruins and devestation.

Ice clinking,
Cool liquid touching lips,
The familiar of ethanol biting the back of my throat where some remains.
Percussive,
Repetitive,
Hypnotic.

A soft strum of a ukulele  breaks that pattern,
Accompanying the beautiful wails that I know will haunt my dreams,
As assuredly as the person who she wails over will haunt hers,
If she can sleep at all that is.

It's staccato rhythm is almost primal,
Like an erratic heartbeat,
Driving the song with time signature changes,
It's unpredictablilty works well,
Xylophone notes giving it an etherial-like quality,
As if to give me a feel that I'm in a dream,
In the sleep that evades me so.

Their voices sound forgiving,
Almost begging,
But their words relay a bitterness,
Who was it that scorned them so?

As the song draws to a close,
It fades off as if the band has finally drifted off into the sleep they craved so.

A farmer comes to love what he grows,
Even if it is just a bit,
So much effort expended,
Something has to be felt,

Warm late summer days,
Soaked in a warmth you imagine a mandolin sound would give off if it could,
Lazy clouds floating across an blue immersive sky,
Sitting underneath a tree surrounded by four fields,
The tickling of healthy grass scrunched beneath one's feet,
A gently breeze on occasion,
Brushing across one's face,
As if to lull you into a peaceful sleep.

When I was younger he was stronger than Superman to me,
Wiser than Albert Einstein,
And funnier than a book of knock knock jokes,
A constant in the ever changing experience that it is to be a kid.

As I grew older he gained a couple new facets,
He at times became a source of ire to my teenage mind,
But patience was one of those attributes that never changed,
Although at times I more than likely stretched it to it's very limits.

And as I became an adult it clicked,
And it was like it was before,
Any previous tensions were wiped away,
Connected again after a few years of being gone,
Many a Friday night's spent just drinking beers,
Shooting the **** and listening to vinyls that he bought in high school.
Sometimes just sitting quietly smoking,
The silence a place we could both find solace in.

And now I am slapped with a harsh truth,
That he's not invincible,
That anchor won't be there forever,
That even Superman is mortal.

That a man I've seen endure the impossible with barely a muttered curse and a grimace just for spite,
Could contemplate throwing in the towel.

Talk about a shift of paradigm, right?

All because of something I never planned for, even though it comes to us all.