The Amazement

The Amazement The track I walked, in the thorny landscape, was full of loose stones that kept coming up from ground trying to trip me up, where the track narrowed amongst unkempt trees, boughs tried to push me over, and in the undergrowth I heard snarls of animals too vicious and hideous too appear in the flesh. Overcast day and the wind that blew had ice on its breaths, I shivered alone in the enmity of a landscape gone feral. But I staggered on unwilling to give into phobias and fear, suddenly stones went subversive and the path was soft as a carpet, unseen animals disappeared and trees welcomed me with fluttering leaves; even a love hungry zephyr whispered sweet words. In a shimmering glade- smooth as a rich man’s lawn- a plum tree, full of juicy fruit, I picked and ate some; they tasted of magic and sweet marvel. Dizzy with pleasure I sat on a stone, formed by ten million years of rain, like a throne, saw sirens dance to Pan’s flute and swim with sunrays and moon waves that hadn’t made it home and had to wait for night, and mother moon to come pick them up. Fell asleep when I woke up a boar, with her seven piglets, drank water by the lake’s far shore. White clouds on blue, time to go home and remember not speak of this to anyone.