Gulls above, waves below. Snow upon the mountain, supported by the coated trees. Salt and sand with pine aloft. Thinking of the ground prepared, waiting and so soft. All too real, no doubt or curse. Nothing could be better and less could be much worse. Time it slows when breathing ease. No harbor towns or judge appease. To walk a saint and hear the faint sound of silence we deem so quaint.

Complaints dissolve and sound subdued. Cooked up sweet steak fresh bread we chewed. Our hearts and muscles freshly renewed. Into the pelt I melted warm. Constellations taking their clear form. Imbued with pleasure and fits of joy. My heart not bitter nor mood so coy. For days and weeks we marched at pace, a roaring rhythm of saving grace. Wide smiles and color upon each face.

No sense of doom, no furnished room. Where duck and squirrel do their dance. A fallen tree my sheltered home. To wind we bundled absent spark. Setting flame with birch wood bark. We laughed inside not aloud. Much too humbled to be feeling proud. Our mood soon quickened with each mounting cloud. Into deep supply each must reach remembering waves on crashing beach.

So short now this hour new. The steps once many reduced to few. Our feet aflame our names forgotten. All was pure nothing rotten. Pondering all that we’d forgotten. Upon our doubt we encountered peace. Abundant life and new found lease. Against reduction we sought increase. The happy smiles of kids in mud, found in awe of the powerful flood, who knows when trees supposed to bud?

Our skin and hearts in deep repair. No cause for anger, rage or swear. We’d found ourselves, I do declare, when we expected to see so little there. Hope is treasure and will so kind to fortify and prepare the mind. Our hearts aflame with kindled fire knowing now we’d reach the wire. Stretched across a road so slim the day so long the light so dim. Spurious delight the thoughts impossible to requite our charcoal future once again so bright. We knew we would survive the fight.