Tarmac Meditations #193: Some Nights

Some Nights

I dream some nights that I am running alone
Along a remembered mountain ridge
The air is cool, redolent with wild sage and cinnamon.
Breath in and out, footsteps, echoes, heartbeat
My cadence of renewal.

I run with ghosts.

Dawn breaks distant over the eastern ridge
The sky is all purple fire and promise.
The End of the World Cafe below is always closed, the faded neon spreading like dirty rain
The highway is empty, save for the big rigs “rolling fast, rollin’ wild” on the way to somewhere not here.

You know, at least I hope you do,
That,”I never meant to do you any harm.”

On the ridge trail patches of wild mountain thyme are
luminous in the rising light, there are flickering movements
on the edge of my vision. Horizon in every direction through jack pine and second growth alder,
ghostly silver under a waning moon.
My dream world is sere, clean and spare.

I hear the far off sounds of dogs barking.

Night slides into day on the ridge line,
Dirt and distance, dust and sweat
The spiders and the snakes, the dope driven demons of my nights are gone for awhile.
It will be all right. I will be all right. I am all right.

Image Credit

Photos by Michael Lebowitz. All rights reserved.