Kate Alexandra Priestley

The Climb


Roads turned to clay
Sinking deeper and deeper in the mud
My feet merging
With the disintegrating surface
Of my mind
No other way to go
But to go higher
Beginning the ascent
The resistance in me groaning
Shaking the gravity of the mud
Off my boots
My body embarking
This trail
Initiating me on a trial
The path may disappear
And reappear
But I know the way.

The winter sun shines
So blindingly bright
Finding myself
Further out of my spiral
Realising that
I am carrying too many burdens
The heat squeezes me
To go on
I must strip back the layers
I sit on a rock
That holds space
For a scattered pause
My western mind
Clutching to AI
Like it has put its prongs
Into my limbs
Disappearing into a dimension
Not of this plane.

I climb higher
The eloping deers
Startling me
As I enter the wilderness
Of myself
Cabeza explotar
Time and space
Folds and unfolds
Opening and shutting
Calling my fragments
Somehow within grasp

What is this ‘you’?

I keep going
Forging my pathways
Further into myself
The smell of pine and thyme
Beckoning my earthly senses
I reach a lone tree
Revealing many other peaks
Of destinations around me
Mountain of gold already here
A stone monument
Sits at the highest point
Overseeing all the directions
The village far below
Hidden in its nest
Peeking up at me
Like a little chick
Awaiting my return.

I sit in the majesty
Of the ancient white veined beings
Jagged and smooth
An unwavering presence
Anchored in their mystery
Stern in their wise stare
Putting my prattling in its place
My eyes touching
The Earth’s worn textures
Bursts of rock
Reaching into the upperworlds
The pine trees
Rising and falling
Like hedgehogs snoozing
Breathing soundly
Over the lands curves
To beyond where the known
Meets the horizon.

Feeling the huge empty space
Stretching out infinitely
In front of me
The silence echoing
Through the deep valleys
This emptiness
Feels larger than me
My body becoming part of the vacuum
Reaching where
The sky blends into its cosmic mothers embrace
Sitting in her womb of creation
Nature holding me
Rebirthing me
Purity’s strength
Making its presence known:
What isn’t mine
Cannot live.

The mountain’s energy
Streaming through my being
Pushing through the tight cracks
In the heavy concrete of my head
Expanding me
From inside out
For me to carry
Heaven’s potency
As I descend back down

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