Sometimes it’s like that.
Even the halls of Paradise
come to resemble
the dull, grey walls of a prison.
The light of eternal radiance
wanes dim and squalid,
passions tepid,
the warmth
gone from the eyes and mouth.
Sometimes it’s like that.
The days recede and languish.
The clock’s unending march.
The haven once sought so earnestly,
closes in
and the embrace becomes a shackle.
The island,
however tropical,
can still serve as a prison.
Sometimes it’s like that.
The unrequited.
The missed potential.
The outstretched hand,
ungrasped,
unfolded.
The rain that never touches the ground,
evaporating in mid-fall;
so the garden,
though moist,
remains fallow.
A kiss that never touched.
Sometimes it’s like that.
The dire ascent.
The summiting
of Herculean measure
to heights above.
To view the very curve of the Earth,
to shout,
to whisper,
closer to the ear of God
than any man before.
To proclaim,
“Here I am!”
to the whole of Creation
and hear nothing in return,
but the echoes of your own voice
and the wind.
The view is spectacular
and then you have to climb down.
Sometimes it’s like that.
HG – 2018
