Alone, on a pine needled cove.
Alone on a pre-historic volcanic peninsula,
An hours away from civilization.
4.5 kilometers from the internet.
On that island, I saw the shadow of the cloud
It moved across the tiny bay whose waters held my animal,
where I lay my body down
And I watched the silver of the juniper turn dark
And I heard the familiar hum
And I smelled the rusty pine needles
And I felt the dried moss
crack under my foot,
I saw the silver of the juniper
And the moving shadows cast by clouds
Blanketing the seemingly infinite mountains of hemlock, spruce and pine.
I witnessed how swathes of land
can miraculously change color,
just like that,
I wondered if the show I was watching was faith, magic or science.
I saw the dark line of where reflections meet,
Where water and rock and trees become one shape
And nothing is as it seems.
Birds are dots
And dots are nothing.
We are turning.
Standing upside down
In void.
I paddled in the rising sun and watched a globe of fire rise in the distance
I was alone for all of 1 hour that day...
it was the quietest experience of the last 6 months.
And it held a sliver of hope.
That if I could stay here,
in that moment,
observing the natural world around me,
awed by every witnessing ,
I could be ok.
We could all be ok