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Too Close To The Edge
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I thought to die that night in the solitude
where they would never find me…
But there was time…
I lay quietly on the drawn knees of the mountain,
looking over the edge,
staring into the abyss…
I do not know how long…
I could not count the hours, they ran by so fast
Like little bare-foot urchins - shaking my hands away…
But I remember…
Somewhere…
water trickled like a thin severed vein
and a wind came out of the grass
touching me gently, tentatively, like a kitten’s paw.
As the night grew…
the gray cloud that had covered the sky like sackcloth
fell in ashen folds about the hills,
like hooded virgins, pulling their cloaks about them.
There must have been a spent moon,
For the Tall One's veil held a shimmer of silver…
That too I remember…
and the tenderly rocking mountain
the silence and the beating stars…
Dawn…
lay like a waxen hand upon the world,
and folded hills
broke into a sudden wonder of peaks, stemming clear and cold,
‘Till the Tall One bloomed like a lily,
Flecked with sun,
Fine as a golden pollen
Smelled…
the raw sweet essence of things
Heard…
spiders in the leaves
and ticking of little feet,
as tiny creatures came out of their doors
to see God pouring light into his star.
Seemed like time and life held still…
No future and no past but this…
staring into God’s timeless abyss.
I too got up stiffly from the earth,
and held my heart up like a cup…
Copyright ©
Sara Etgen-Baker
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