Saturday, November 26, 2016

Over the Hump


It took only sixty years, give or take, for him to remember his birthright. It took a Sufi poet, a clarion slap from from a desert moon, two broken legs, attendance at the birth of two sons, being stranded on a mountain ridge under summer heat when the water pump went out, and a long, blistered hike across the ugly plain leading to Parnassus. She kept bringing the cup to his lips, but he was stubborn and stupid and proud. A lot of good that did. Now, the tug pulls him forward, beckons just out of reach; he is under the spell and hopes he will never recover. He has slipped from the skin of his former self and left it, like a suit of old clothes, by the side of the road. Naked now, he continues, the path dropping steeply toward the river.

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