I remember once sitting on a cliff, overlooking the vast expanse of land and sky before me. I felt so alone, yet so alive. There was life, and death, before me in a sea of rest and commotion. I sat in stillness, completely active as a breeze gently rustled the autumn leaves around me.
Thoughts went back to moments that seem an eternity ago, before my own death and resurrection. There seemed to be a simplicity in the anger, and a comfort in the darkness. I was born into a sea of black, scourged by the mindless and conceived by a mind lost in the chaos. I believed the fault of their sin was all my own, and took their misguided thoughts as some gospel to which I owed my sanity.
Great loss and pain cascaded over me like a cocoon. I became but an infant, a chrysalis hung to a branch. Though I fought and struggled, the confines of my prison tightened around me. There was no escape as the blessings of fate’s love embraced me whole, with the very blessings that I cursed, the very blessings that would save me.
I smiled at the recollection. There was no simplicity or comfort in those memories. I had adapted, and in a way adopted complexity as my simplicity, and suffering as my comfort. I remembered the instances where the beast would rear its ugly head, and I laughed in the instant. I would remember the moments of despair, and offer love to the boy as he cried. I would remember the times when the darkness was all I had to share, and I offered forgiveness to a heart left broken.
On the cliff I pray we all will sit one day, remembering the ledges of windows and rooftops we once stood, wondering if to jump was to live again. One the ledge we seek our own redemption, and we search our own inner peace. On the cliff we recognize them both. On the ledge we choose our own eternity, and on the cliff we pay homage to time that ceases to exist. We can learn so much from the ledge, and the climb we take to get there.
Today I sit with the vision of you, I want to feel your soul as your arms wrap tenderly around me and your lips gently kiss my shoulder. I want to feel a smile crest my lips as you call my name, and a tingle shoot down my spine as you take my hand in yours. I know I can endure your absence for a little while more. I been to the ledge and survived, now a lion with a forceful purr, a beast with a heart whose roar cannot be ignored.
I have fallen and risen; forgotten and learned to walk again. I have loved and lost and lost and loved and discovered who I am. I have been left alone to die in burning room of fear and found life anew in the smoking embers. What else is there? What else but fire can temper the strongest steel? That I do not know, but I long for the challenge sure to follow the Sun above my life’s horizon.
One day I’ll hear a sound come from behind me, and feel that shiver roll down my back. I’ll feel your hand brace itself on my shoulder, and watch you sit besides me on the cliff. There, we’ll think about the ledges we have stood, and when that scene is over in our minds we’ll turn, look in each other’s eyes, and kiss as lovers often do.
That will be a purpose of our journey. Each step, each climb, each fall, each forgotten moment will have brought us to each other on a cliff. There could be nothing wrong with any of it, and we’ll sit and stare across the vast expanse of land and sky and point to moving things that capture our attention. We’ll tell stories that excite us in the moment of our resurrection, and laugh at our own remarkable will to arrive. We’ll make love in the mountain grass, lost in the profundity of the moment. Then we’ll wash the grass stains off our knees, and walk quietly back to the cliff where it all began. Where it all continued. Where, on day, it will all end.
~TG