Come and Find Me In My Solitude

Solitude sounds good on balance, yet perhaps that is just me. There is the implication of loneliness, of nobody to talk to, and I think of the many people for whom the pain of being alone is immense, maybe unbearable. "Solitary" - is that a good thing or not? Life can be torment, and I've had some horrible days, always of my own making, days where I was alone with the pain of being a fool, of hot caustic circumstance, where time itself seemed to be alive with a bad fire. You have found me in my solitude, so, which way do we go? Today, let us go from hot to cool. Walk with me twenty years ago - by then, you might think it's cold. We are in northern Ontario, Canada, at this time of year - early December. Clouds lie thickly above us, a layer of protection. Our path is around a lake, water on our left, forest on the right. There is no wind - if we hold for a time, the only motion comes from small, widely dispersed snow crystals, falling earthward, falling mostly past us. It is that perfect time of morning when the world is caught between dark and light, things visible but still within their hidden selves, black trees, white snow, muted greens and grays, the silver of the water. At the birth of an instant, an eagle rises and flies directly away, then turns and glides low over the lake. We see it moving right to left, linear above the water, the glide of the continuum, seeing past the moment into all that is tranquil, and everything that softly remains. All that is below will go, one day. The eagle senses the union between us, and begins to gain altitude, the air being so still that we hear every beat of wings against it. December 3, 2016 For Mystic Rose's contest: 'Come and Find Me in my Solitude'