Almost to the top.
Foothill, Remnant.
Once a mountain,
mountainous heart.
The heat, the air, the
crisp, cutting, and caressing.
I stumble as jagged rocks tumble
and dust rises as feet fly behind.
I fall onto all fours like an animal
by the trickster whose side I hike.
I turn and sit on a natural chair
of weathered granite polished
by the cushions of previous souls.
I see across the distant brother with flowing basalt hair.
Near is little sister wearing a white quartz summer dress.
I'm resting on mother, tall but weary, worn out but friendly.
Father is somewhere behind, watching over all, his family and I.
This family has stuck together for eons through eroding hardships
and grand expansions beyond my greatest imagination, only hinted
by the scars, the gifts from Gaia, and relatives spread across the land.
On the way down, I see signs of life.
Near the edge are curves of an old creek,
rounded pebbles and smooth boulders.
Will the water ever come to visit again.
At the foot, the ruddy plants from an alien world, fighting to survive.
The wasps, the flies, the skittering critters who run when I dislodge their home.
This family of time guards them against the suffocating love of the burning sun.
The mountains swallow the voices of others as I watch them chatter and laugh.
Once proud and miles high, once covered by the sea, once young and lively,
this family watches over the valley to this day, holding back the thunderclouds.
Someday they will fade softly into the ocean, their etched histories forgotten.
Soon, I will return to the noise to my busy life. I will--
I will return to the unknowing to the loud to the false reality, but...
But, someday I will fade softly into the ocean--my busy life, the noise--forgotten.
15 September 2019
