Sunday, January 16, 2005

Forever an afternoon

I have a vision.*
+
Vision of a white, snow-covered land. Time *seems to be still, and space seems endless here. The Sun, too, seems *to have frozen in one place, making it a still, still afternoon.
*
I am there. Ba+refoot, long-haired, and dressed in white. A flawless, light, cotton white, *pajamas and shirt... like scrubs. +I must have left life in this condition. *Surrounded by snow, I calmly rest in the+ quiet, perched on a tiny mound of snow.* There is no sound, no movement+, nothing* in this wilderness. And time +will never pass. I hear nothing outside,* and no one inside me.
+
For once, it has *all come to pass.
+ *
I feel neither cold, nor warm. I feel n*o need to rest, nor to move. +I am there, forever, hidden from* viewing the larger span of +land - blocked by mounds* of snow barely taller than myself+. Beside me, there is only one tree. *Bare, except for red, red berries of the kind and +size I have never seen.
*
They must be sweet. The smell of their sweet, ripe taste hovers+ around the tree. I have no desire to taste. I am just beholding its *juicy, red sweetness. I am reclining on my mound of snow, my right arm under my head, hair thrown loosely around my *face, knees rolled up, and my bare feet + calmly resting on the white, flawless snow. I do not feel any cold. No one feels cold in this place. This beatific eternity! *
+
I can see my face: it neither waits nor expects. My eyes are calm and smiling. The expression has come to stay+. The expression of knowledge, of stillness, of *content in this eternity. There is no past nor is there any future. If there is a Time, I am beyond it forever. +
*
The fingers of my left hand dig playfully* in the snow... and play, and play with +its wafery flakes. They+ melt in my touch.
+
Back in the distance, there is *a muted sound, squishing in the softness of snow+. The sound is approaching. I lift my head up to the right, and expect+ the cause of this sound to reveal from * behind my view. What strange thing is expectation of things we hear, but haven't seen! Who'd know if the cause would reveal to me, or leave* me alone to wonder and wilderness? But in this vast, quiet space+... it seems my right to have know*ledge of all that passes by.
*
The soft, subdued gallop, gallop comes nigh,* and from behind the mound reveals a magnificent+ deer. Golden brown, wide-eyed, peaceful, long-horned* deer. My companion.

I *smile and get up. We contemplate each other+ awhile, I smiling, and the deer knowledgeable about the no*whereness of our condition. We are friends in an +eternity, and he brings me no tides of space and time. I+ kneel on his side, and run my hand over its *glistening sheen. The deer looks up at the berries.* It is beginning to snow again. I throw +my head back, catch a flake on my tongue, and* turn my head back to gaze at my companion. It stoops to nuzzle against my neck, then straightens up to contemplate the tree. *I embrace it, hide my face in its soft skin.+
*
So will we remain, forever this afternoon.*


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