So I stand at the cliff’s edge looking down on familiarity. I look down as far as I can see, to the fears, the hurt, the shortcomings, the broken hopes and dreams that were swept away in the waves that still crash into the shore. Waves of repetition, like worries in my mind, with a spray of memory that lasts but a second before circling again to rejoin the ocean’s enormity.

My head hangs down looking below my feet, to the shoreline where centuries of movement show no stopping aside or moving backward. Mountains of sand and rock moving upward with vines of seaweed entangled. I see my faults and the painful roads I chose that washed me to shore, weakened and powerless.  I cannot fix these broken hearts or mend the fences that are not mendable.

So I look up at the clouds, through the air and mist, at the sun that is so powerfully radiant. I feel the air blow through my hair, I close my eyes and for a moment my head is finally clear, forgotten is that mortal world and all its meanings, highways and street cars, polluted air and gravity, all these things we call progress that will become our legacy.

I look up again and I see the empty space and nothing more, no path or road, no guide, but plenty of room for dreams and hopes. Time stands still now reaching into the parts of me that still need such reaching, re-claiming the parts of me that I had owned as a child when the world was an endless road of possibilities and fantasy that were lost in the twist and turns that separated me from my roots.  

It’s time to fly now as best I can, to take this leap of faith off cliff’s edge and expose my shaky wings, with the hope of jumping forward and not back, with no guide other than myself.

I used to think the world was round
That everything is circular and never ending,
That our lives are recyclable and have no meaning
That all that dies lives again
That every year will be followed by another
And another forever or so I believed
BUT THEN, I realized that the world is flat
I realized that we are moving in a definite direction
That has a beginning, a middle and an end
That there is profound meaning in every little thing I do
Every thought, every sign and every movement
Headed towards an ending that is not to be trivialized
Everything is new and each day to be cherished
Never to be seen again
There will be an ending, a day of reckoning
When everything that has mattered will be judged
When all of our actions and thoughts and deeds
Are brought forth to be examined and sorted out
By Good and by the Bad
On that day, Jesus will come and gather us up
Into his arms to save us from crumbling soil
We will destroy ourselves as men are wont to do
So that there will be no recycling, no new beginning and no new day
There we will be delivered at the ends of the earth
Just as the explorers once believed it was so
With only our souls on our back and nothing more
There is an ending to our time on this earth I feel

I know it when I look up to the sky and into the light
And see His hands cupped and reaching down
Beckoning like a comforting friend
Reaching to gather us up to Him close
And save us from ourselves and our useless knowledge
That in the end means nothing! Everything will come to a halt!
At the feet of the Almighty where it once began
And only He knows what will happen next.

Sometimes when all the world stops watching

I escape and scale the wall, throwing myself tumbling over
Landing in a place where trodden paths give way to timelessness and courage

A place beyond the give and take distractions of everyday life
Much closer to, if not exactly eternity

I smile when I land here and breathe the light air, relishing the total silence
and tranquility that comes with being one with myself

On some nights I return here with greater ease
Transported through dreams that pull me quickly,
Taking me to the same place where I can be whatever I want to be

Until my eyes open and this vision disappears again, disappearing like a liquid going down the drain
To be replaced once more by daily doldrums and roles that I must fulfill

I know that I will one day locate this place for real
On faith I am sure about this

It is beyond the light that shines through the trees
Or in the unkempt path that wanders off the beaten way
It’s in the smile of a stranger whom I may never see again
Or in the bright yellow presence of a wild field so brilliant that it calls me backwards

I will bravely follow this path one day and turn around, trusting my instinct and following purely my own heart

Follow it or else I must turn around once more and head home
Never knowing who has been doing the calling.