At times like these, I feel I’ve unfettered feet, and more
than perhaps two. I’m a centipede, marching mind thinking a hundred things, estranged
from my own wandering shoes. I found the glory within, crawling over the pass
and seeing the mountain, wearing no hood or cowl to match its name, but
gleaming like a frozen font, a spike, a rigid canine, a snow-leopards ear. A
valley swoops beneath me, the very land removed from under my rolling toes, and
the curving wyrm of the land is like a Chinese dragon colored in wildflowers, a
royal carpet sliding towards the sanctified Olympus.
And seeing that vision, the pinnacle of creative mass, I
understand the inertia of love and the gravitas of sacrifice and sanctification,
if only a little. I can feel the weight of it on my dreams, the deep, heavy
sighs of the earth and I imbibe of the grace therein. I need everything, the
nearness of it all and the prescience of divinity.
Tonight is the last day before my last best friend is
married off. I found the most beautiful road in Newberg (well, I’ll hedge that
with a ‘one of the’), and drove along a ridge facing Mount Hood, vineyards and
grazing livestock filling the periphery with the perfect ambiance. I wonder
whether my words are a subtle injustice, a slight on the majesty of creation. Does
poetry only detract from true creativity, and music only a cheap substitute for
the orchestra of creation? I cannot believe this to be true, as a general rule,
but sometimes I cannot collect any words that portray the mountain, that
harness the motion of the river, that captivate as surely as the woods, the
rain, the clouds gloomy and playful over the starry sky.
I want to sleep, but my body fights me; I want to eat, but
there, too, I’m refused; I want to imagine worlds and write poetry, to sing,
play guitar, dream, and write beautiful things, but I’m stymied by an incessant
farewell-love. It’s that inhibitive time where nothing can be done until I’ve
done what must be done. I’m not the parents, but I feel as though I’m
surrendering J and S to each other and to another place, just as I did Matthew,
just as I did A and S, just as perhaps I’ve done countless times before, though
each time with a greater piece of my heart to offer up.
So here I am, staring down a bag of chips and wondering if
my pacing mind will focus enough to finish reading a book, or whether I might
just sleep instead. I fear I’ll be stuck in a pasture without sheep to count,
dear Olwen, but perhaps this is how all vigils should progress, in
existential-quandaries of beauty, peace, and letting go.
There’s probably a Disney song about this.
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