On the Tar Creek Trail
Posted here as well as my Myspace:
I walked, and walked, and walked. Sweat dripped from my brow to my hat to the brim, and then it would collect at a spot to catch the last day's light in a swaying miniscule relief to my tired raspy stagger, and then end it all in a drop six feet or so to my dirt-covered big toe.
I tried to keep up a certain pace, but would eventually stumble, stop, and catch myself for a few minutes. I'd look around, look back down the trail for someone behind me. I'd try and listen past my own breathing and only hear my heartbeat in my eardrums. A bird, maybe. I'd look up the road, and down the road. I'd wonder if I missed a turn-off while walking -- hiking? -- along, head down, muttering.
I drank all my water rather quickly, while moving up and up, a hundred feet, five hundred feet, on two feet. Sore foot after sore foot, blistered and cut and scabbed.
I walked as the sun set, seeing my shadow for awhile grow weak. I walked until I had no more shadow, and the sky was backlit by the sun's final rays. Without shadow and truly alone I huffed and puffed up a hill. I recited words to songs I half-knew, trying to remember each verse. The rattlesnakes and deer I passed and never met didn't ever reply.
Soon the Moon was up and I had a shadow again. It was cooler out, but I still walked uphill. I regained a shadow, a moon-shadow tracing my steps. Illusionary moonbeams through brush made me think of a flashlight, a friendly hiker at the trail's end.
Around the corner was only downhill, then up another.
I walked down then up, up, up again. This last hill was the worst, as if to condemn me to stop and not want to move again. To get me to stop and never leave the mountains. Return me to the wild and find myself a slave to the grime, the dirt, the tarry black of the night; and to the early morning dew, the wondrous spring from which I had drank a scant few hours before. To consign me to the world of the bats and bears, and the mysterious condor whose presence so perfectly punctuated our trip.
I made the hill not without effort, and rounded the bend. And there, a thousand feet below me and a few miles ahead of me, a string of jewels in the night that spilled down along a couple ridges and into a valley. A city lay glittering before me, seeming to be within arm's reach.
I don't know if I've ever felt so glad to see Filmore.
I walked, and walked, and walked. Sweat dripped from my brow to my hat to the brim, and then it would collect at a spot to catch the last day's light in a swaying miniscule relief to my tired raspy stagger, and then end it all in a drop six feet or so to my dirt-covered big toe.
I tried to keep up a certain pace, but would eventually stumble, stop, and catch myself for a few minutes. I'd look around, look back down the trail for someone behind me. I'd try and listen past my own breathing and only hear my heartbeat in my eardrums. A bird, maybe. I'd look up the road, and down the road. I'd wonder if I missed a turn-off while walking -- hiking? -- along, head down, muttering.
I drank all my water rather quickly, while moving up and up, a hundred feet, five hundred feet, on two feet. Sore foot after sore foot, blistered and cut and scabbed.
I walked as the sun set, seeing my shadow for awhile grow weak. I walked until I had no more shadow, and the sky was backlit by the sun's final rays. Without shadow and truly alone I huffed and puffed up a hill. I recited words to songs I half-knew, trying to remember each verse. The rattlesnakes and deer I passed and never met didn't ever reply.
Soon the Moon was up and I had a shadow again. It was cooler out, but I still walked uphill. I regained a shadow, a moon-shadow tracing my steps. Illusionary moonbeams through brush made me think of a flashlight, a friendly hiker at the trail's end.
Around the corner was only downhill, then up another.
I walked down then up, up, up again. This last hill was the worst, as if to condemn me to stop and not want to move again. To get me to stop and never leave the mountains. Return me to the wild and find myself a slave to the grime, the dirt, the tarry black of the night; and to the early morning dew, the wondrous spring from which I had drank a scant few hours before. To consign me to the world of the bats and bears, and the mysterious condor whose presence so perfectly punctuated our trip.
I made the hill not without effort, and rounded the bend. And there, a thousand feet below me and a few miles ahead of me, a string of jewels in the night that spilled down along a couple ridges and into a valley. A city lay glittering before me, seeming to be within arm's reach.
I don't know if I've ever felt so glad to see Filmore.