and Downs

We saw it as soon as we stepped in the room today. You were not well. A hundred medical things were going right, they were moving you again, they took the last of your wires, but you were not well. It's begun to sink in, what a world you have entered, what a life yours has become. We can offer no solace, we can grant you no freedom from these chains. Jokes are made about escape, but we all follow orders when they arrive.

Sometimes today we laughed, we spoke of other things, we let our hearts breathe for a minute and rest. But as I drove down into my valley tonight, I cried, and I could not stop. I missed the exits, I forgot my errands, my mind isn't here and all I know is how to drive that damn highway, up and down, to see you.

The mountains have been so beautiful this week. Every day a new miracle, a play of lights, a snowy shroud, a dance of clouds and streaks of sun, so green, so green, so beautiful it hurts. I stare at them when I wake, when I drive, when I sit in your hospital room and have run out of words. They are tangible, when everything else falls apart. I lean on them. There is nowhere else to go.