Luminous Blue

I have known the sky. I have soared in its luminous blue, the rapturous chorus of wind in my ears. Ahead, the shining promise of forever has pulled me up and up to where everything is mine to hold, to love, to share. I have known the earth. I have been pulled by its sucking mud, down and down to where light is choked out and the smell of rotting decay fills my flaring nostrils, struggling to breathe. If I could stay somewhere between earth and sky— if I could walk on green grass, in the cool of shady trees, and smell the sweetness of flowering vines— but no— I have known bliss. I can never erase from my mind that endless, confident, astonishing blue of the sky.