Holding and Containing

I was afraid of hills

because I couldn’t see.

When you’re afraid to be held,

a hill’s abhorrent;

the way it tries to undulate

in front of you, to fold you in,

to stand in the path

of your running. A hill

is the will of the world

pressing in on you,

covering you with its shadow,

fixing you with its weight.

It takes the late evening sun

down before its time,

and hides the morning’s herald.

A hill is an immoveable

judgment on your insignificance,

on your entirely unnecessary

presence. A hill introduces

separateness between the earth and sky;

it is the eye of the world

looking down on you.

or

A hill is the rising up of a

different story, something

new amidst the distance

of aloneness, and the space

between a someone else and me.

A hill softly lets the light

topple over its surface,

breaking up the contours of the view.

It is a metamorphosis of sight;

a lesson in uncertainty,

in the hard climb of the

openness to love, and the permeability

of the ground beneath.

A hill is being held

at the breast of the world;

a hill is a relief.