The land beyond...
What lies out there?
What lingers, what dwells
Behind that veiling, icy air
My heart, curiously, draws near
As my feet stay their place
This cold window keeps me,
And, recreating my face
Like my own eerie shell
Looking coldly back at me,
The glass shows me myself,
And a world, wide and free
The land beyond...
What lies out there?
What journey awaits
Beyond that veiling, icy air
My life, there, is written,
In that novel land beyond
In that hazy world, uncharted,
Where my worries are all but gone
But it’s here that I remain
In the small, boxed-in cage
And it’s up to the Writer
When to turn the next page
Until then, the story waits
And I may not know destiny
I’ve never glimpsed fate
But the heart knows no lie,
Not of this, at any rate:
Its desire within,
The chapped thirst of the soul
lt just knows that it’s looking
For a new place to go
That land beyond...
What lies out there?
Well I may never know
But, well, I don’t really care
Because what if the longing, what if the dream,
What if the thirst,
Is not to know what it means?
Maybe the adventure,
The journey, the task,
Is not to know why, but simply to ask
A world lies ahead,
All the looking, the mystery,
And these few pages we’ve read
Herald something more interesting
We have not seen it all,
Explored what lies there beyond,
All we’ve to do now is begin
Cherish this page, and read on
And the pages beyond...
What’s written there?
The truth is, quite frankly,
I don’t know and don’t care
I’ll let the Writer turn the pages,
Let His words take me there
And I’ll just smile and read,
Breathing in the veiling, icy air
Apr 30, 2015
Apr 30, 2015 at 4:05 PM UTC
The land beyond...
What lies out there?
What lingers, what dwells
Behind that veiling, icy air
My heart, curiously, draws near
As my feet stay their place
This cold window keeps me,
And, recreating my face
Like my own eerie shell
Looking coldly back at me,
The glass shows me myself,
And a world, wide and free
The land beyond...
What lies out there?
What journey awaits
Beyond that veiling, icy air
My life, there, is written,
In that novel land beyond
In that hazy world, uncharted,
Where my worries are all but gone
But it’s here that I remain
In the small, boxed-in cage
And it’s up to the Writer
When to turn the next page
Until then, the story waits
And I may not know destiny
I’ve never glimpsed fate
But the heart knows no lie,
Not of this, at any rate:
Its desire within,
The chapped thirst of the soul
lt just knows that it’s looking
For a new place to go
That land beyond...
What lies out there?
Well I may never know
But, well, I don’t really care
Because what if the longing, what if the dream,
What if the thirst,
Is not to know what it means?
Maybe the adventure,
The journey, the task,
Is not to know why, but simply to ask
A world lies ahead,
All the looking, the mystery,
And these few pages we’ve read
Herald something more interesting
We have not seen it all,
Explored what lies there beyond,
All we’ve to do now is begin
Cherish this page, and read on
And the pages beyond...
What’s written there?
The truth is, quite frankly,
I don’t know and don’t care
I’ll let the Writer turn the pages,
Let His words take me there
And I’ll just smile and read,
Breathing in the veiling, icy air
|Written December 5, 2011|
Story
My final year of high school, I did not have a class during the 5th class period. So, I spent my time in the library. Since I was in the deepest depression of my life that year due to heartbreak the previous summer, I was very contemplative. I listened to music, and thought. A lot. I wrote a lot of poetry that year, and much of it turned out to be some of my very best. Our library had big windows across the entire wall. One day, I was looking out of that window, thinking about life, and my potential future. I was very curious and drawn to the beauty of an icy fog, visible out of the distant bluffs surrounding the town. It made the land beyond seem like a mystical, mysterious place, similar to my own future.
Trivia
The Land Beyond (alternate title: Unread) is one of my favorite poems of mine to date.
© 2017 A.D. Sifford.
I'm okay with you sharing my poems, but I ask that you show courtesy. Please be honest about the authorship by attributing it to my name. Thank you,
- Sifford
