The Mad Straight Road

Coming to a corner, a path diverges, one, well worn, strewn with a lifetimes garbage, leads toward the cities. The other, clean, with warm mossy earth underfoot leads into a cloistered wood, dark and unfamiliar. Along this latter avenue I find myself inexplicably drawn, the smell of sleeping ferns and nightflowers growing on my senses. From here the tangled trees seem almost blue against the moon, complex and mercurial, and the moist wind seems heavy with their somber song.
There is no guidepost, no chart nor measurement, by which to wander, merely an intangible summons amongst the ancients to follow.
I am a somnambulist, and there lies my sleep.

I plunge into lapis woods, and the boughs of trees are the blue mirror of my anxious blood.

From some distance a vague light shifts and dances amongst the black, opal votives in the dark.

The sound of running water floods my hearing.

Ahead a ruddy glow reveals a small clearing, and suddenly, voices.

As quietly as possible I move onward, my hand coming to rest against the cool flesh of a fir.

Before me, and before a blazing fire in its center, a man, sits singing, his voice heavy, deep with some vast experience.
In the wavering light, other beings are revealed, musicians from some forgotten age, marking time and sending up a strange chorus.
On the periphery of the clearing the dancing lights I had seen earlier have gathered and are still, ringed round by diaphanous forms undulating in the thick mixed air.

The man, to whom all harmonies are obliged, is thin, almost sculptural, a bittersweet smile always playing about his mouth. He sings of friends, of lovers passed beyond reach, of other places, times from which he has long been removed. He sings of birthdays and the end of all things, his voice sometimes soaring, sometimes falling below familiar hearing.

Above, the moon has risen to its fullest, and swathes the clearing in a cool opalescence, betraying my presence.
The man simply smiles and beckons me.

And soon, I too am singing.