The setting sun was at our backs when we first saw the valley.

We could just catch the sound of the waterfall. The wind was swirling around us but our eyes were fixed on the fire of the summit.

That was our goal and, if the stories be true, very possibly our tomb.

We stood there, taking in the moment. We would camp here tonight and make our careful way to the mountain.

It would be a slow process, given the terrain. But a required one. To maybe fulfill a wish.

So that maybe next year, there wouldn’t be sacrifices.

The sky was like a cracked mirror, the rays of the dying sun spreading across it’s surface. In another age it might have been viewed with dread, with beseeches to deities.

But to my eye it is perfect. Perfect for itself, for what it portends.

I smile, wishing I had the talent to capture the sight on a canvas. But I will have to settle for a camera. Sufficient, but cold.

This will not be the last time for such a sight. Once more, at the very last. Before the world tilts just so and is never the same again.

My eyes are always drawn to that patch of sky, thru that one arch.

I have never seen a dark cloud there. The stars shine, the moon just visible to the right.

When I am away from my window, I need only close my eyes to see it again.

I am no artist nor poet to do it justice. So it stays with me alone.

I have lost track of hours spent staring at that view.

Tomorrow I will finally walk thru that arch, toward that patch of sky, as the moon rises.

A fitting portal to the next world.

(Picture taken by a Facebook friend, Steve Odinson, whilst on holiday.)

They paint it as a bad thing. Anger, aggression. And it can be, but like all things it’s a matter of degrees.

Some times it’s the one thing that gets you through a situation, through a life. Being in guard. Leaning less toward ‘hello’ and more to ‘what do you want?’

But you have to know yourself. Spent time by yourself, inside your head. Know your dark, your special brand of crazy.

Know who let pass the barriers. And if a wrong one slips through, how to kick them back out. Hard.

The key? It’s your tool, not your existence.

I passed the sign every day. Sometimes it wouldn’t catch my eye. But at least once a week I would stop to read it.

Some days, I would snort and walk on. Other days I would find myself thinking about it during the day.

Then came the day that I walked by and realized the sign was gone. But for one shred of paper sticking out of the pushpin hole, it might never have been.

For weeks I didn’t realize how much the sign’s absence bothered me.

Not til the day I made my own copy and tacked it up.

I  see him, always off to one side. And you can be sure I’m the only one who notices him.

He doesn’t seem to have a preference. Light and dark hair. Men and women. He never leaves alone.

He waits for them to come up to him, never he to them. Just stands there, then you look back to see him walking out with someone.

If you ask them about him, they just smile, a mirror to the one he often wears.

Think I’m going to do the walking up tonight. See what that smile’s all about.

Wish me luck.

(Not my usual cause I resisted my obvious to make him a serial killer.)

The spidering of the glass brought the morning into a sharper focus for me.

Hints of one part were reflected in several other places.

Nothing was contained in its own space, but melting with other parts.

It was all connecting, in ways that couldn’t be predicted.

I sat and watched the whole day’s colors travel across the mirror’s surface. Even the moon made its magic known.

I knew there was a deeper meaning here and didn’t move, falling asleep in front of it.

Only to find it broken the morn upon awakening.

But even in that, was there a lesson.

Some nights when I look at the moon, a part of me remembers a ‘before’.

Before this life.
Before this name.
Before this flesh.

I remember the speed of four legs.
Of teeth biting and tearing.
Of bonds deep worn..

And i wonder at a simpler time, but not an easier one.

A time of immediacy.
Of necessary survival.
Of what must be done.

Sometimes I look up at the moon and wonder if that ever was.

Or I am just mourning something that never existed for me.

Blood memory?
Or mind longing?

Does it even matter?

Do I care?

I saw the Keep before me, a shadow in the dying day. Bordering a black swamp.

I learned all the whispered stories of it. All the fears the local people barred their doors against in the night.

They all warned me to stay away. To leave and never return. It was a curse of this land and one they had to bear for living here. But I was a stranger. I had the chance to escape.

If only they knew. While I was a stranger, my blood was not.

And they knew nothing of curses. But I would teach them.

I was walking in a wood of flame.

Around me were the colors of autumn. A chill breeze now and again whispered of approaching whiteness, but for now fire still held sway.

I stopped at a bridge that echoed the colors around it. In the ancient wood I saw the reds, yellows, and a hint of the lost green.

As I crossed, I felt for a second the fire on my skin. Heard the crackling of flames. Smelled the burning.

Later I would mourn this vision, as the leaves disappeared and all was covered.

But for now, I was home.