by Jim Curtis

Created on: August 28, 2009

One Morning In A Place Of Beautiful Names

It was in the eastern mountains,

in that place of such beautiful names

as Shenandoah, Allegheny, Blue Ridge -

make you want to sing, don't they -

while I was hiking, me, my back pack,

my camera and my walking stick,

that I saw the full-circle rainbow.

It was early, the high flyers

were stretching their wings to dry

so they could lift off, fly,

etch their initials in the sky.

What a thought, to soar above that valley,

with no fear of falling -

made me want to sing.

The mountain was high.

I had to stop every now and then to rest.

This time I stood on an edge of rock

and stared out over what should have been valley

but was, instead, an immense and mystic sea

that lacked only ships asailing,

ships with canvassed masts and pennants blowing.

The world below my feet was cloud.

I was standing in mid air, like a lesser god,

and all I wanted to do was sing.

I took out my camera

to preserve the moment.

I was hampered by encumbrances,

straps, sticks, loose rock, the cold, and my hurrying,

knowing this moment could never last,

all around me beauty that in seconds would pass.

My heart pounded,

my fingers failed,

my foot disturbed

great chunks of stone

that rolled, tumbling,

flying into space,

falling through the clouds.

Not once did I hear the sound

of rocks striking earth or water

so far below my feet they were.

I began to sing,

It could be me falling,

flying into space,

never to walk the earth again,

and there before my startled eyes

I saw the circled rainbow,

full circle, not arched, up there,

out there, high above my head,

far beyond my reach,

but right there below me,

there beneath my feet.

I was looking down on it,

that brilliant, full-circle rainbow,

that circled band of colors

that did neither begin nor end.

It seemed to lie upon the clouds

through which the stones had fallen,

the clouds beneath my feet,

there where the sky etchers flew.

They could fly through that rainbow,

fly from this plane to that the other plane,

to the other side of that rainbow....

What magic might be there.

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