It was early spring. The air was cool
with winter’s fading breath.
The day stretched on and time lost meaning.
The sun was still visible in the western sky,
and the glare of midday softened to a hazy gold.
The sky overhead, was such a
depthless blue. It seemed that if gravity’s hold
could be broken, you might swim it like an ocean.
I was conscious of the world slipping past,
like pastel watercolors running on a canvas,
and I felt myself melt into it, feeling my blood hum,
my heart pound and my thoughts scatter.
The movement of my legs and pounding
of my feet absorbed me, enfolded me,
and then swallowed me up, leaving behind
only footprints in the dust.
Then, I too seemed to simply fade away,
as if composed of smoke scattered by a sudden gust of wind.
Sunlight streaked the flats with red fire.
The sun settled below the horizon, so that
its brilliant orange glare was only a faint smudge
against the darkening skyline.
Daylight faded to a silvery gray.
Shadows of nightfall began to lengthen.
The night deepened and the moon hung above
the horizon in brilliant opalescence,
brightening the sky.  The clouds, brief shadows against its
widening crescent, sailed past in silent procession.
Stars filled the dark firmament with pinpricks of silver.
Shadows swallowed the last of the fading light.
I became a dark shape in the deepening gray;
becoming so still I might have been carved from stone.
Dark, mysterious places whispered to me of things
you couldn’t see, but could only imagine
and secretly wish for.
I listened to the night,
the whisper of the boughs, a soft singing against the silky black.
I could feel the branches of the big hardwoods sigh
with the faint passing of a momentary breeze.
The sigh seemed collective and all-encompassing.
It was as if the night had become alive.
The breeze wafting across my heated skin
was cool and soft.  I stood looking upward, for a moment,
thinking that nothing of the madness of the world
in which I stand is reflected in the heavens I view.
I wish I could find a way to smother the madness
with the tranquility and peace I find up there,
for I sometimes feel like Don Quixote tilting at windmills,
with no hope of finding peace;
but, I remember for a moment the way things were,
and my tears smudge the words that I would keep.