Ascent
The narrow passage arched over the gaping river
like a gymnast vaulting backwards,
gracing the ground with open palms.
I began to climb--
beleaguered on both sides
by insecure concrete obstructions;
I diverted my attention to the ascending road ahead.
I continued to climb,
like a slowly chugging roller coaster,
meekly scaling up the track
with subdued anticipation.
I sunk into the road;
the sky merged with my pseudo-perpetual path, forming the offing--
where it seemed the road ran eternally into the heavens.
I saw blue reach into black in the late afternoon's
fading visage.
Summit
Gliding over the mountainous ****,
I stared over the horizon
where the sun was neatly tucked
under the trees--
silhouetted against the dusky sky,
looking like fingers reaching up into the void,
accumulating like earthly pillows to a heavenly face glowing brightly.
I watched a murky blue dip into a wet grass'd green,
then a traffic cone orange,
followed by the passionate (infra)red of two lovers' entwined,
climaxing in a jaundiced yellow--
tucked neatly like a layer of film
atop the silhouetted landscape.
Descent**
I wished I had
descended the adret
of my ascension's perceived perpetual offing,
rather than this gritty one--
to dip into the horizon,
where I would metamorphose
into a dazzling array of colors;
feeling myself slowly fade away
into the impending night sky.
Tucked away for another day,
sleeping under the stars,
in the fingertipped forests
now obliquely reaching into their absent luminescence
but relishing the cool night air--
silently waiting for light
to soon again
breach their gloomy shells.
[Enlightenment lingered within the visions of my ascension--
I danced with its transient spirit at the summit--
to be decimated as the car lurched downward into mortality.
I saw what could be as I moaned into the
fading afternoon's dipping colors.
Who knew the descent was the hardest part of humanity?]
Solomon's Island, Southern Maryland.
