TAO GEOGHEGAN HART: Place II

I travel between worlds. Sometimes dark and damp, moist, like an undisturbed morning dew. Sometimes old and familiar, engraved in my mind like the grooves of my palms. Sometimes new, a breath of fresh air in every meaning. Regardless, always revealing, brimming with lessons and unfamiliarity.

I pass through deep shadows and cold air that falls deep in to my lungs. I feel my way, the surface of the road rising up through my hands, shaking my knuckles and tarnishing my skin. Occasionally a glare of light will escape through the canopy, a fleeting opportunity to build a better sense of where it is I exist, but for the most part, I simply pass through, everything falling beyond my focus.

And then my momentum, the twisting road, throws me to a greater light, through a gap ahead. It warms my skin instantly, but the sensation is, like everything, merely temporary. It doesn't take long for the moisture to return; this time crawling my shiny skin and stinging my eyes. Again I see nothing. But I feel. I feel it is in this heat that you can most clearly sense the end. Its unforgiving nature, unrelenting intensity, lingers ever so close. It is palpable the further alone you furrow, the higher you venture. Turn away, let go and the feeling will last for an eternity. There is only one way out, you cannot escape.

The road starts to lope upward. Unaggressive, for now. It ripples a little and my hands loosen to compensate, guiding me forward, against natures will. It cuts a path between that that is left, and right. It serves no purpose but to reach the top, the end. Likewise, as I now slow against the gradient, I serve no purpose but to reach the top, someday, the end.

It strikes me to look down from afar at it all, most especially from a mountain top. The City I grew in is littered with artificially created viewpoints, but it is from a place outside of this bubble, looking in at it all, that perspective is created. Looking in this way, I find a clear and lasting sentiment. For what is created down below, as mighty as it is, appears so self contained and insular from up here. It may be cold, different, aloof up here, but it is peaceful. It is a place of it’s own. It is a rarity.

I travel between worlds. Between it all and my own. Rising up and coming down. But somewhere, everyday, high or low, I find my place. And it strikes me again and again…

It is so small, sprawling, separated and full. It lacks love and commitment. It is all so back and forth. Back and forth in the bubbles created. With time to pause and find a place? I don't see it from here.