deep magic, old rope

We stretched our limbs less limber than childhood and scraped our knees and forearms with grainy black tar mud. And we climbed the roots of a washed out hill, crowned by the oak tree. The faithful oak tree, who lends his boughs for the youth evermore.

Muddy river, rising high above the watermarks on the banks. It's been raining for days and the earth is soaked and bloated. Climb up the mud bank, look up the big oak, see the old rope.

And I was twelve again. On the river with the same boy and his sister. We were trembling with excitement, feeling the nervousness wind around our stomachs, flow down our legs to our toes and through our lungs to our fingertips and tingling lips.

Stand on the lip of the last root, hold the knot of the rope, take a startling breath as keen as a newborn's, close your eyes tight tight tighter than the blind man, and let go. Not of the rope but of the earth, forget about her. Leave her, we're not bound to her forever. For three seconds we can forget our feet must be rooted solid, and bring our heads much closer to the clouds. The great oak creaked and sighed as I flew from her roots and toward the sky that she reaches for. Like a fisheye, I watched the ground then the water then the trees and the heavens.

And then you let go of the rope. There is nothing holding you to the hard ground or keeping you from the everlasting sky. Flying, my eyes are open now. Rushing up and then into the great muddy bath below. Hit the surface so hard my lungs rang, and swallowed great orange river water. Knees sunk and hit the bottom of the river bed, felt the rocks and the twelve inches of rotting mud. Let my toes feel all the fish shit and river banks washed from miles and miles before down into this bend in the river, by the great oak.

Burst to the surface, tasting whatever the water had tossed into my mouth. Looked back at the boy and his sister and my best friend. Their smiles told me I'd done all right, had flown as every twenty year old that can never die should. I'm twenty, and I'm not old at all. My heart forgot to walk with my body, and is still playing in the mud at twelve. Found the deep black mud in the shallows and painted the last frontiers on earth. A canvas full of soft white flesh and now covered with hard black clay.

The mud is magic, the oak is ancient, the river is changing. The flying is eternal and I am twenty and I can never be old.