Glacial
We move unobstructed through a frozen desert—
desolation which welcomes, indiscriminately, fools like us
with open arms, roaring heat and blinding light.
Unfounded confidence and a thirst for what comes next drives our feet forward
and our heads up.
Ice and snow crunch beneath our boots
as we cross shallow streams of vivid blue
Etched, stark, against brilliant white.
The sun sears my already burnt skin from above and below,
and my eyes, overwhelmed, do not see.
I, despite
the dull ache in my back
the sting of cold wind on my lips
the numbness in my toes
and my blinded eyes,
am lost in the absence of thought.
I'm not in a happy place,
nor am I uncomfortable.
If anything, I am nothing, my mind nowhere—
blank as the snow around me.
Yet when the cold air yanks me back to the present,
nothing turns to cold
and cold to exhilaration.
Out here, in this frozen desert, with nothing below my feet but ice and nothing before me that I can see—
out in this Great Land North where the sun never sets,
endings do not exist.
Thus I cannot help but to wonder what it would be like
to live my life as such, unrestrained by beginnings and ends,
Hoping to cease not till death.
Copyright © Sam Rudnick | Year Posted 2019
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