Dancing down the mount

Of rain washed stones

Reading the sky

With blue inked eyes

Singing the earth

With our red tounges

Breathing sweet pine

Holding our mouths full of it

Like balloons 

Scarlet blush

As we dance down the mount

Of rain washed stones

The air up here is see-through clear

The only fog comes from our hot dry mouths

Rubbing our cracked hands

Licking our cracked lips

Teetering here, on the edge of nothing.

The air up here is blank-minded thought blinding

The only thought to shine through as stars in the nightling sky

Stomping our frozen feet

Shouting our frozen fears

Standing here, on the edge of nothing.

The air up here is falling down

The sky throws itself upon the mount and cries

We hold the frozen tears in our cracked hands

And catch them with our cracked lips

And looking up to cry with it

Happy tears

Teetering here, on the edge of nothing

They are walking. They have been walking so long by now that they could not stop doing it, just like one cannot stop breathing. Among them there is him, the new one, the one that does not understand exactly why he is doing it and has to trust blindly in the word of the older, wiser in the art, of the group.

He carries a big, heavy backpack, by this time it is a part of him just like his heart, brain or other organ, and not an extra weight. It really is a part of him, it is the thing that maintains him alive in that harsh environment. He could survive the journey without an arm, but not without a backpack. Before they started the walking one of the wiser men of the group told him: “watch out very carefully your backpack, up there anyone can do anything to take it from you”.

Now they are walking through a straight, very clear trail that goes beyond sight. He is kind of surprise, they have not going through a road like this, surely they have not lost the track until now but the trails had always been sort of wavy and not totally clear. He thought they had lost the track a couple of times because of the conditions of the road. So this new situation gives him something to think about.

They continue walking and suddenly the straight, very clear path vanishes away and just a series of tight, unorganized bushes is left. A feeling of fear and insecurity empowers him. “Great, what nature gives nature takes, why does this surprise me?”, he thinks. He is expecting for someone to speak up and tell that everything is going to be okay, but no one speaks or even moves they are all freeze. Short after, one of the wise men of the group takes methodically out a compass from a compartment of his backpack and uses it. Then he says calmly and with a soft voice: “is to the north”, and points in that direction. No one denies the instruction, and all of them start walking at the instant.

He is amazed, no one protests even though that is the steeper, least clear direction of all. “I surely would have said something if I was an older member of the group and knew more”, he thinks. But he does not have time to think deeper on what has happened because the group has started to walk again and he was started to being left back.

They keep going but it is hard. They have to push the bushes´ branches to be able to continue going in the right direction. Sometimes when he is pushing the braches they scratch the cloth of his clothes. He knows that under the clothes his skin might be bleeding; he can feel the pain. But he cannot stop, he must continue going with the group, loosing distance with the group in this place is dangerous, he can end up lost very easily.

Night starts falling over them and little by little each member of the group starts to turn on their head lamps. First the less experience of the group that are afraid to stumble with the loosey rocks and sticks of wood of the ground. Of course he was among them and his head lamp is turn on when there is still some daylight left. At the end when darkness occupies everywhere still can be seen some head lamps turning on of the more experience of the club.

The night passes and at the dawn he wonders when if ever they are going to get wherever they are going if even there is a destination. Not much time after this they reach a kind of old cabin in what seems to be the top of the mountain they were climbing. Outside the cabin the older of the group stop what makes all the group to stop. Then one of them says: “Here it is, we have arrived.” He cannot believe it. He feels a mixture of joy and surprise. By first time a smile is drawn in his face. He is so excited that he asks very loudly: “Now, what is next?” to one of the wise men of the group without thinking. “Now, …, now we go back”, he answer.

November-24-2003 
Trisha M. Barrek  Hopkins

Flying way high above the mountain 
With his wings spread out so wide 
The hawk spots his pray by the spring fountain 
The pray spots the shadow and scurries to hide 

So free so peaceful in the sky 
To fly as they please 
I wish i could feel as free 
A freedom of its own in the clouds so high 
i wish through his eyes i could see 
A gorgeous sight he could of shown 
It must seem cool to live where he may be 

Hawk Mountain there is almost no worry 
For they are so far up so close to heaven 
If people don't stop hunting they will be gone in a hurry 
And their beauty will be stored only in a book 
Because people are too selfish 
The elegance The peacefulness the hunters stole they took 
Hunters do not care they just want to rich 

Banish the hatred Banish the greedy 
Lock them up and throw the key away 
Let the hawks soar free 
And not have to worry for another day 

Copyright

Slowmoving 

*

A mountain cataract
has great speed
as it travels
from heights alone.

The Mississippi
flows slowly
with the weight
of many.... all One.

-saiom shriver-

*

Footnote: The Mississippi-Missouri

is the world's 4th longest river after

the Amazon, Nile, and Yangtze.

At its widest it is 11 miles.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/MRGO_outlet_on_Lake_Borgne.jpg

Hurt is never ecstasy

Pain is never pleasing

But although it aches so bad

There’s beauty in your suffering

Like a rose, when crushed

Delivers its sweet smell to its destroyer

Like a flame, when doused with water

Turns into a cloud and flies away

Like a mountain, who’s being mined

Its rock turns to dust and dances in the wind

Like the night, being conquered

Brings forth a beautiful day

Like a mother for her aborted child

Sacrificing love, but too little too late

Like the death of a person

When they know there’s Paradise’s Gate

There’s nothing funny about it

I know it hurts so bad

But while you want to be happy

There’s still beauty in your suffering

Into the mouth of the hungry mountain, he faded; staggering as each slow, clumsy step took him two steps closer to the unknown, and one step beyond the vile death that stalked him. In the chasm, there existed no sight to guide him, no light to shine his way; only the sensation of long abandoned train tracks that lie in sorrow under his feet; the skeleton left behind. As though to show him the way to life eternal, each wood plank; every stone sank deep into the sole, walking him further on into the void. Against the walls of the night, horrid bellows of suffering and madness echoed wildly, numbing his head with the agony of hell, surrounding him; filling him with confusion. Where they behind him, where in front of him; was he walking away from grave, or walking into it? As the rotting unseen called out from somewhere beyond the dying moonlight, which long left him abandoned and blind, the fear began to burn hot; With no strength left, no protection, and no memory; would he find salvation? Forcing himself forward, he shuffled deeper into the bowls of the mountain.