Ride

Inerrant, we ran forward across the dust-covered grasses which lay prone upon the pounded earth.  Our goal was only the horizon, the fading sun which boiled in the sky and down to the edge of sight and which radiated fading light as it gave way into the shrouded dark of night.  And yet still we went on heedless of the unseen and terrifying and loathsome creatures in the blackness, driven by lungs not yet forsaken of breath and legs rhythmically sounding across the ground in the deep thrum of the hearts that beat in time.  And the stars wheeled and stretched above us, and streaked across the sky in double time and the air was cool and spoke of a dewy morning eager to spring forth.

So it was: on the near border of land and heaven the first lightening intrigued it's way forth, and then we stopped, our chests heaving with the sudden effort wearing upon us, and my eye met yours, and we turned and wheeled about as the dawn-birds did and as they strode in flight towards the light, we followed.

To catch the sun.  To ride.

What is

There is distance now, more than perhaps ever.  He surrounds himself with devices of his own making, culled and shaped into shapes alien to their origins.  She shelters herself away from places that would stir her soul and silences the voices that call to her, drowning them out in a cacophony of blaring lights and bright sounds, away, away, away.

And yet, when the garrulous sun's rays falter behind the horizon, and the hand of night stretches over their sliver of the world, they look up, and amongst the eerie glow of civilization's pulsating presence sparkle miniscule and faraway and dead stars whose light has outraced galaxies to shine for a brief moment on their speck of the world. 

And wonder and terror fill them and dread and hope and of all, there is beauty, because in that pause they can feel their hearts beat and their muscles ache from the strain and they realize that, no matter what else they may ever do, they are part of creation, and always will be.

They are of stars, and of the Earth, and the water and millet. 

They are One, all of them, all things, all creation.

They are beautiful.

They shine.

Renewal

The first green bud pokes out of a frozen expanse.  In an instant, tidepools teem with a dazzling new generation of life.  Somewhere every few seconds, an aged and weathered body gives out, and down the hall the first cries in new lungs call out.  Worlds are born in unimaginable cosmic fire, and suns blacken and collapse into void.  Change is an immutable fact, and perhaps even if in the end entropy is the only victor, for now these cycles continue.

So too in the Lake.  An impossible amount of time ago this was a place for me to stretch forward and up and extend and encompass and explore, to see capabilities, to imagine language and story and thought.  Those muscles have lain fallow in lieu of other pursuits, but even as Fall knows to follow Summer, the muscle memory remains and the cycle must come again, and its time is now.

It's time to shake off the rust of accumulated time, to stand up at the edge of the Lake and once more peer down into its depths.  Where it leads, I cannot say, and when it will end, I do not know.

The Lake is beckoning me, and I must heed.