I’m thinking about extreme distances tonight. Cosmic, internal, time and space. Before and after, too far to ever really see. And if we stop to feel that distance, we lose. If we stop to wonder about the goal itself and if it cares that we seek it, we lose.
Overcoming that haunting, overcoming that fear of the journey. The fear of, “What if when I get there finally and I . . . . and I’m just there, as I am here?”
I wrote this poem many years ago, and it seems ahead of me now.
Straddle the Years Like Blue Light
The hard dream of rain
In the eyes of the wind
Warm wind
Glowing across the green soft grass
Pulling the sea into my eyes
Standing waiting for the smoke to clear
I lean into the breath
Of the sea
Lean into the personal displays
Of weather and her angst
Someone moves slowly on the mountain
Someone deflects the rays of the past
And my back is to twenty shadows
And my smile creeps out like the crabs
Scuttling over the wet brown sand
Deep into the gamble of horizons
My eyes lock with the line formed by our
Biology
Black and deep deep purple
Black and fade
Purple and fade
Motion from the waves and the light jumps
For me and for the shadows on the mountain
Grays and dark greens model into small pyramids
Of ocean and I cry out for the sense
Lurking underneath
For that ancient comfortable mystery
For that echo of my name
— by Douglas Pinson