Through

And through the mist, the rain falling like waves upon the thickset canopy—that partial umbrella keeps some of the storm off as I climb—I see the end of my journey. Cold, my breathing’s growing heavy and damp, and my feet are sinking and sliding in the muck, but pressing on, fighting on, I set my face to that grey patch of empty sky ahead of me, the trees, their trunks like prison bars—but I know I will be free. The closer I get, the further apart they spread until I’m past.

I look out over the cliff into the dark ravine where the curling tails of fog, like whisps of smoke, twirl and fold over each other like dreams. Shadows and mist and secret mysteries, all beneath, a beautiful colloquy between nature and the mind of man who invests her subtle motions with perceived grace. I give to the view the eye, that it may be. The echoes of the storm rise to bless my ears, changed and transformed to deep rumblings. Somewhere, a tree falls in the forest, and I hear it, I feel its reverberations as it hits the earth, the earth we two stand upon.

I turn my eyes to the stormy heavens, but the clouds will not part for me, though the rain washes my face of the mud.

https://taletold.wordpress.com/2024/07/10/falling-asleep-at-the-keyboard/