Coming soon
Coming soon
To dream, dare, and then to leap
Slicing custom and routine.
The self cracks and knowledge seeps,
Into all the gaps unseen.
I come from the trail, baked in sweat,
Covered in bites, muddy and wet.
My body aches, my blisters scream,
Yet I feel I’m living the dream.
I stared down a bear, down my death,
Swirling rapids with icy breath,
Ridgelines of thunder and of stone,
Doing it all tot’lly alone.
To suffer is noble, I say
To myself, if you choose the way.
The pain we choose prepares us for
The pain we don’t, of which there’s more.
And to strive for a worthy goal,
Accepting the pain on the whole,
Educates on how to achieve,
How to persist, how to believe.
Then I find I’m asking myself,
After I’m done, and in good health.
Of all the leaps and bounds I make,
Of all this, how much can I take?
The failure of a lifelong dream?
The aching pain of losing steam?
The solitude of lonely years?
The bitterness of realized fears?
There was a time before when I
Returned from peaks above the sky.
Confident that my journey had
Made me immune from all the bad.
What is earthly stress compared to,
Dodging those rocks spat from the blue?
And trudging up that icy slope,
Placing each step with fear and hope?
Yet with my feet back on the ground
To my dismay I quickly found,
Despite the sev’ral peaks I climbed,
Oh, that stress still plagued my mind.
So what then of the stronger stuff?
Of failing to be good enough?
Of dreams sliding beneath the waves?
Of loneliness within your veins?
Alas, I do not understand
The conversion rate ‘tween bear and man.
How many bears, a sunken dream?
Or lonely nights, a flooded stream?
But still I hope, if just for fun,
The going rate is five to one.
So to fin'ly sink and drown my cares,
I just must stare down four more bears.
Hammering heart, stammering feet.
Blistering hands, blistering heat.
Twenty to bolt, forty to mud.
The climber falls, is there a thud?
The leaves would change this time of year,
And for a few weeks I’d walk
Through red, orange, and bright yellow
When coming home from practice.
Underfoot, the dead leaves would crunch
And the mud would squish and squirm.
The gravel would crackle, pavement stomp,
And the crisp air etched in sharp relief
The skyline of the Upper West.
I remember those walks, tired but free,
And I remember that skyline.
It was there that my dreams lived,
Between the afternoon sky and CPW.
A wise man once told me
we live in the age of Narcissus.
Born not of vanity but of drive:
To be seen, to be felt, to live... flawlessly.
What can’t be measured can’t be improved,
So we built pools of flickering light.
I am not your hand,
Under your command.
Let me to be free,
Answerable to me.
The only gift to give,
A life for me to live.
To dream and try and fail,
And finally prevail.
The sky is clear and blue, and the grass of Golden Gate Park is radiant and green. I sit on a hill, but unlike the ones that punish me on my bike, this one is calm and pleasant. Strewn with blankets, books, and sunbathers, it looks out onto a flat lawn at the eastern edge of the Park. A paved path lined with benches seperates the hill from the lawn, and a collection of life is amassed around this fracture.
Around twenty people, mostly in their sixties and older, are engaged in countercultural ritual. Several have brought drums, which they play with varying degrees of skill and coordination. Together these vestal virgins create an undulating rhythm that rises and falls in an endless psychedelic swirl. On the path, a woman sways and twirls slowly with a scarf. She is younger than the rest. As she slips in and out of rhythm, men of the group join her, moving with even less grace but equal conviction. For a brief moment, each pair trades steps on a large white peace-sign painted on the blacktop.
Many lounge on the grass, shading themselves with colored parasols. Puffs of smoke rise lazily. A broken parasol serves as their flag; a triangular scrap of red-orange fabric blowing faintly in the breeze. Two small dogs chase each other, one with its legs and tail dyed bright pink. The dancer leaves with her scarf, and her mantle is taken up by a man with a long silver pony-tail, flat cap, and sleeveless leather vest. He paces, making jerky quarter turns back and forth as his arms rise and fall.
On a bench to the group's left, a homeless man is slumped. His feet are firmly planted on the ground and his body is cantilevered a few inches above the bench. A shopping cart is in front of him with two empty boxes inside. Suddenly the tempo of the drumming picks up and he stirs. He scratches his head and sits up. Slowly, he slumps back into his original position. The rhythm continues.
On the hill, others look on. Some as they take in their surroundings, some as they look up from their books. They're like me: young professionals, probably transplants too. My attention returns to the sky and grass.
