What is it about stairways?
An image of promise,
Or is that mystery?
Cascading in slanted light,
Tempting us forward,
Upward
Delivering us to romanticized paradise
Or ornamented haven.

To sanctuary disguised as a sun dusted bedroom,
Where doubtless, is a hidden love
Of the sort that once uncovered,
Will ever follow us.

Or maybe to dark wooded rooms,
Glowing with strings of frosted light.
Indigo ceilings and charcoaled walls,
Lit up

Or a creaking hallway that will usher us
To chipping french doors with a glassy view,
Where we will glimpse a new and equally hopeful vista.

Perhaps enchantment
In the form of rolling, dark green gardens,
With another Stairway that is their own, but is
Descending,

And which, at its very sight, we can feel tugging at our hand;
Breeze itself, defined and determined
It will be an alluring yet familiar pull.
Luminescence between our fingertips.

The sight a vow that will pull us down those steps
Cool stone alive with mossy cracks, that curve, disappearing from view
Laying us down to wonder,
Only in a moment to reemerge in the clearer eyes of our mind.
Where surely, round the corner, we will just be able to make out that the steps are met
With an unclouded, rosy woodland.

The aspen encompassment of a measured and ghostly chemistry;
Flourescent tree line and rocky hem,
Savage and most lovely,
If we only have the courage to climb or to descend them, a perceptual promise awaits,
An ended hunt.
The perfect tincture of Wilderness and Refuge,
That will make us feel the scope of our existence,
without ever having to doubt whether we are safe.