matt pond PA

June 13, 2016

Our Midgard.

Dear Skeptics, please believe me. I am not writing these words to betray our dreamy garden of doubtful visions. The small-minded throngs and disingenuous forces will continue to be the target of our sarcasm and gutsy sighs. The official eye-roll faithfully remains in the repertoire.

But when I tell you there was not a cloud in the sky, you must trust that it was a sincerely clean slate. (A deafening silence arose in the complaint department.)

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North-South Lake’s escarpment trail isn’t any kind of grueling spirit quest; there are no claims to greatness or valiant conquests. Rather, it’s a place to drop cell service and get lost in complete, unmarketable contemplation.  

Out of the car and into the woods, a sudden shimmering cathedral, flashing green glassed light, popping visions of wildflowers, purple and white. The wind against the branches making the floor of forest sparkle like limpid Mediterranean water. Billowing ferns — it is one huge undulating world out there! All manner of tree and brush, birch mingling with oak under the white pine towers. Birds and swaying trees speaking back and forth between song and creak. The whispered roar of breeze-blown leaves, a constant chorus open to every single interpretation.

Close-up on the lichen, the striations, the parallel grooves in the massive boulders. Zoom out to the surrounding mountains, appearing to be glacial waves cresting on a turbulent moment, yet frozen in time.

Focus in on the fly in the mouth of a dead bird, caterpillars descending from canopy on their incandescent silk. The shot widens upon cliffs of cloven boulders. At some point they tumultuously fractured into mammoth puzzle pieces. Somber statues of ancient action. Guardian lions, arboreal and wild. Eternal seniors to my endless freshman-isms.

In the very real reverence of our intricate coexistence, the interconnected complexities of our natural world, I’m silent.

Virescence, a humble hue transcending perception. The vividness,  just as bright without sight. Fallen pine needles, ripped fronds, turned earth band together into the deep, undeniable scent: Green!

A shared thread between our senses becomes a shared thread among humankind. The cynics, disillusioned with their doubt, disperse into a sleepy June dusk. Sorry, Skeptics, but it appears as if the mythological simplicity of truth and beauty is the only real reality.

Every stupid thing I’ve ever said, done and sung eats crow in the humbling grandeur of the organic gears — in the light speed of a split second, I understand. Life, sex, death, repeat! Our mighty, thriving Midgard engendered by Ymir’s slain body!

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