In the hills beneath the stars,
Some many years ago,
The valley said to the mountain,
Still topped with mounds of snow,
I really am no good for you.
I think it's best you go.
The mountain who so loved the land knew that she could leave.
It would take some time,
For slow it is when mountains lift and heave.
But never had this crossed her mind,
What her valley friend believed.
I've started shaking,
The valley said.
You cannot rely on me.
I keep breaking and falling.
I've crumbled into the sea.
I'm an embarrassment.
The valley said.
I've lost who I used to be.
I've seen the strain this puts on you.
I've seen when lava flows.
It's all my fault.
The valley cried.
All my tension to you goes.
Someday you will just decide I'm too hazardous to know.
The mountain wasn't upset enough when the valley was overwrought.
Why wasn't she more serious about what the valley was not?
It made the valley feel convinced.
She was correct in what she thought.
Do you listen to the people,
The mountain began to say.
You must hear them more than I.
They don't often come my way.
But I listen when they climb and rise at break of day.
All they ever talk about is how each thing will end.
Each journey,
Adventure,
Or moment.
Will they survive?
How will they fend?
It's all they ever speak of.
Be they siblings or lovers or friends.
It seems to me,
The mountain said,
This is where your fear dwells.
Instead of finding a heaven,
We'll find a kind of hell.
Well.
My friend,
I will not say that with my head up in the clouds,
I am any better than you.
Though I hear you say it out loud.
That I am majestic and you are flawed.
That you are worthless and I should be proud.
I can tell you of the countless times I've felt my shoulders fall.
Remind you of my plumes of smoke and dust that down me crawls.
But you're just focused on the end.
And this won't help at all.
Do you know that feeling?
When a single blackbird lands.
On your hills or in your trees,
When a single blackbird lands.
We almost always focus instead on when a thousand boulders land.
When will the next disaster strike?
How hurt will we all be?
Can we rebuild?
Will we be the same?
It's all we want to see.
All our worries and stories spin in this mad uncertainty.
You will shake and I will fall.
A little here and there.
You'll get hurt and so will I.
I promise we'll both be scared.
And in the end,
We'll fall to earth.
To say that,
I think,
Is fair.
It's so easy to think of boulders a cascading torturous demise than to remember a single blackbird that soars and swoops and flies.
We'll return to where we were,
However that may be.
But while we stand,
We should look up.
See possibilities.
And when we fall,
Well,
That just gives us much more sky to see.
