Everything and no one

I gaze at the Highlands’ mountains and try to force myself to feel joy in its entirety. But I can’t. Look how beautifully the sun plays on the rocks like its pressing keys: white for light, black for darkness. And who am I? Darkness, light? Half-shadow? Twilight? I am a cloud. A cloud that obscures the view for tourists, a cloud stumbling upon the hill. A cloud—the only one from which rain falls. I unravel into fluff, cotton, and fatigue. I look at the beauty but see my country’s shattered lives and missile scars in the sky, and the pain spills over, falling into the highland lake. Oh, Heather and Rowan are growing here, just like back home. Oh, the same landscapes and trees. I carry the war with me; it sticks like gum to hair, and I cannot peel it off. Or, moreover, cut it away. Because what will remain? Atrophied acceptance of the world. Feelings. The psyche has blocked everything. I am a tree drying out from the winds and cold, bending and deforming, ageing, Digging my roots deeper to hold on. I am a stone that has fallen from the cliff. I am that cliff that let the stone roll towards the water and moss. Wandering at the foot. I am that wind that chills to the bone and brings relief. An abandoned fortress. I look out the window at Loch Eil, And dive into it like a water nymph. Something pulls me to the bottom. I push off from a stone boulder and paint myself on the glass. I am everything, And I am no one.