I wrote the following last October while en route to Colorado. It was an unusual trip made more so by an unlikely lineup of events. Co-presenting at an advising conference in Salt Lake City spawned a plan to spend a week getting there. I would spend a few days in my old stomping grounds just outside Rocky Mountain National Park, then head west to Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, then head to Moab Utah for a couple of days taking in sights in Arches National Park and possibly Canyonlands National park. But an unprecedented flood wreaked havoc on the Front Range washing out roads and bringing normal daily life to a crashing halt in the area I planned to visit. Then unprecedented idiocy in Washington DC brought normal daily life to a halt for the federal government as well--closing all of the national parks in the process. With these gloomy confounding variables looming on the horizon, I watched a serene and prolonged sunset through the plane window and the urge to write something kicked in:

Ethereal, floating, sharp, bright.

The stratospheric geography engulfs in color and texture.

Looking down and contemplating the ever-denser layers below—

Charging inward to Earth’s incredibly dense heart.

Day above, Night below.

I revel in skimming this plane betwixt Sol and Nox.

Heights feared, depths despised.

I transcend in flight—soaring to graze the depths of space.

In the weightlessness between height and depth I float above fears, failures, foibles—peace.

Such a balance cannot last in Entropy’s lair.

Sol wanes, Nox waxes—

My spinning-top world wobbles.

A lefty in a right world.

Bent in a straight world.

A stranger and alien, yet tied by fear, hope, ignorance.

Running the race set before me—

Aspiring and defeated.

Triumphing and tripping.

Strong and spineless.

The eternal mind grappling with the humbling exigencies of an inevitable march towards chaos.