My Soul to the Mountain...

Have mercy on me, my Soul.
You have shown me Fortune beyond my grasp.
You and Fortune abide on the mountain top;
Misery and I are abandoned together in the pit of the valley.
Will e'er the mountain and the valley unite?
-Kahlil Gibran

There is a mountain near my hometown. A foothill compared to the leviathans to the West, but a mountain nonetheless. On the summit is a granite formation that thrusts out like the prow of a ship. At the edge it's broken at an almost perfect 90 degree angle, and approximates a chair. I named it Hlidskjalf for Odin's High Throne. In Norse mythology, Odin would go to his High Throne to see the Nine Worlds and all that transpired there. In my younger days, I would go there and peer out at my world. My hometown, and the great Shining City beyond.

I went there the day of The Funeral. I hiked up to the summit to Hlidskjalf; to sit and ponder the meaning of it all. Looking out at the World...it seemed smaller somehow. I listened to "The Grey Havens" on my player.

This was my mountain, but for a brief time it was our mountain too. Time means very little to this place, it hasn't changed much over the years.

But there, right there! I kissed her for the first time, so many years ago.

Like lightning, so bright and powerful...but fleeting.

The whispering wind through the pines gave me little comfort.

She's gone now.

Into the West.