it's really hot and sometimes
she just wants to lie down and look at the scorching light and
inhale the sharp air that isn't even summer anymore
it's just there now that she's used to it
and anything that moves is really lazy because
it's hard work laying here in the
sunshine
(it's the divine and perfect and therefore very annoying kind that makes you want to stare at it and run
away at the same time)
anyway anything that moves really doesn't hold a candle to her
concentration on the sun
even though you or i would walk by and not look twice
and the beating blue sky and the tumble of the achingly bright leaves on those tall trees are lost on us
and we do not know
what we are seeing
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Falling
We stand at the edge of the terrifying blade of rock. Woolly white clouds drift in the atmosphere below us. Chocolate-colored mud slips beneath my feet as I lean farther over the sheer drop. I don't even want to think about how high up we are. Then I see it: a small rock ledge jutting into space some ten feet beneath us, hollow and full of crystalline, still water.
"I'm going down there," and I stumble down, backward on all fours and carefully holding on to anything I can reach. But suddenly I can't reach anything at all. I'm holding on to a single outcropping with both hands, but there's nothing else. I try to haul myself up to another handhold. I'm too weak, though, and now I'm shaking and my fingers are flooded with adrenaline as the reality of this situation and my stupidity catches up to me.
"I can't hold on!" I'm panicking now. I want to look down, but I force myself not to. It'll only make things that much worse.
"Don't move," he says. "I'll be right there." I can't see him, just hear his voice, and I wonder if he's as terrified as I am.
After an eternity he's right above me, hanging on tight to the rocks. He stretches out a hand and somehow I grasp it, clutching myself to the outcropping with my elbows and shoulders. Our hands are slippery with sweat and fear, and I can feel my fingers sliding from his. I pull at his hand to get a stronger grip, and then he's next to me, not above me, and I am no longer clutching the rock, and I can't feel anything but wind in my ears. I see a chunk of rock--my rock--falling down, down. It dawns on me that I am following the piece of rock, and so is he, and we are falling, freefalling, through the woolly white clouds I never dreamed I'd see the inside of.
The wind rushes cold in my face and whistles in my ears. I hear a shout of tenor from somewhere and realize he's not next to me anymore just as I see a curled-up shape in his black and red jacket hurtle past me, downward. I try to shout something--an apology, a shriek of fear, a call for help--but the vicious wind rips the words from my lips and nothing can be heard except whistling cold all around me.
The initial shock dies away, and it seems as though I drift through the air aimlessly, gracefully swinging this way and that way in space. I look back on why I am here now, plunging through nothing, and sigh inwardly. What a foolish thing to do, I tell myself. What an idiotic, pigheaded way to die.
This brings a new idea to my mind: Will I die? I don't want to die.
I push that thought away and concentrate on now, on falling. His form is spreadeagled below me, and there is nothing but whirling grey and white. It is almost relaxing in a perverse way.
Until I see the green. A green so big I can't believe I didn't notice it before. But then it is the only thing I see and there's nowhere else to go and except the green and it is looming in front of me and I don't register what that means until it hits me.
And
then
I
am
floating. . . .
"I'm going down there," and I stumble down, backward on all fours and carefully holding on to anything I can reach. But suddenly I can't reach anything at all. I'm holding on to a single outcropping with both hands, but there's nothing else. I try to haul myself up to another handhold. I'm too weak, though, and now I'm shaking and my fingers are flooded with adrenaline as the reality of this situation and my stupidity catches up to me.
"I can't hold on!" I'm panicking now. I want to look down, but I force myself not to. It'll only make things that much worse.
"Don't move," he says. "I'll be right there." I can't see him, just hear his voice, and I wonder if he's as terrified as I am.
After an eternity he's right above me, hanging on tight to the rocks. He stretches out a hand and somehow I grasp it, clutching myself to the outcropping with my elbows and shoulders. Our hands are slippery with sweat and fear, and I can feel my fingers sliding from his. I pull at his hand to get a stronger grip, and then he's next to me, not above me, and I am no longer clutching the rock, and I can't feel anything but wind in my ears. I see a chunk of rock--my rock--falling down, down. It dawns on me that I am following the piece of rock, and so is he, and we are falling, freefalling, through the woolly white clouds I never dreamed I'd see the inside of.
The wind rushes cold in my face and whistles in my ears. I hear a shout of tenor from somewhere and realize he's not next to me anymore just as I see a curled-up shape in his black and red jacket hurtle past me, downward. I try to shout something--an apology, a shriek of fear, a call for help--but the vicious wind rips the words from my lips and nothing can be heard except whistling cold all around me.
The initial shock dies away, and it seems as though I drift through the air aimlessly, gracefully swinging this way and that way in space. I look back on why I am here now, plunging through nothing, and sigh inwardly. What a foolish thing to do, I tell myself. What an idiotic, pigheaded way to die.
This brings a new idea to my mind: Will I die? I don't want to die.
I push that thought away and concentrate on now, on falling. His form is spreadeagled below me, and there is nothing but whirling grey and white. It is almost relaxing in a perverse way.
Until I see the green. A green so big I can't believe I didn't notice it before. But then it is the only thing I see and there's nowhere else to go and except the green and it is looming in front of me and I don't register what that means until it hits me.
And
then
I
am
floating. . . .
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