Himalayan Morning

By Ken Woodley

“Jesus went out of the house and sat beside the sea”

—Matthew 13:1


My desert feelings can’t remember the flat line of their own horizons

and my valleys of shadow recall nothing

the darkness ever said to them.

I awake to an inexplicable altitude

and the music of the last voice I heard

before I woke up

echoing off vertical feelings that cover me

like the sunshine after it has lifted mist.

“Going up?”

The answer surrounds me, like the smell of coffee.

I yawn and stretch into the passing shapes of clouds

that seem to know just where they are going.

My peaks are everywhere.

At the end of a day’s climb

I stand upon the ridge of all that I have ever known.

The air is thin and bright.

I breathe as deeply as I can,

only to exhale in surprise.

A harmony beyond the sky has filled the deepest,

the everest part of me

and no matter where I look

I know the melody will go on forever

if only this afternoon

I can remember to memorize the tune God has just sung to me

and bring the mountaintop home.

Again last night I was certain that I never could

but tomorrow—once more—I believe I shall

remember one more note at least and this:

No matter what happens next

every note of the melody remembers every note of me,

even those that I have never heard,

the ones I must believe in enough to discover for myself

and then sing to my deserts and my valleys.