East, they said,
and east we went.
Onward, upward,
to what they called "The Ruins" at the mouth of Emigration Canyon
A failed building project that left nothing but a few giant curved brick walls.
We parked our vehicles and trekked up to the top of the highest wall.
Cracked open a few brews, sparked a few smokes and gazed.
We gazed out upon the twinkling lights of the Salt Lake valley.
Our view extending to every point of every mountain top creating a giant bowl of glimmering city soup.
I took a sip of my beer, a drag of a Lucky Strike,
and leaned back, my focus slowly fading from the valley, and directing itself upward to the vast sky, obstructed only by a few purple clouds.
The stars were bright and visible that night.
Maybe it was the cigarette, but in that moment I felt remarkably lucky.
The small talk, and jokes made among friends,
The beauty of everything now in sight,
and knowing how it was once nothing.
The thought of every light we could see from the valley containing people, currently living their lives,
We pondered,
How many people are crying?
How many laughing?
How many dying?
How many being born?
Reborn?
Our lives are strikingly meaningless,
And how beautiful is that?
The coyotes howling in the distance reminded us that the land was not ours to keep,
only ours to visit.
We had taken in all we could, for the time being, of an illimitable world.
We ventured downward, west,
and back to our lives,
insignificant as all the rest,
and tried to hold on the the feeling of being above it all.
Being
Boundless