Looking Back

I met with friends on one of my last nights on the east coast before travelling west to Arizona. We decided to head out to a cave, so I could see it one last time. The cave, located alongside the Potomac river in Maryland where I lived was one of my first and still a favorite. Although tiny it was filled with interesting formations and contained several tight passages, which have since become something of a specialty for me.

It was well after midnight when we reached the cave and as we walked down the path all grew quiet as we approached the cliff with the tiny opening in the bottom. In the moonlight, the cave looked like a living thing. I felt small and insignifcant before this stone which has stood for millenia slowing wearing away.

Inside the cave we sat in total darkness talking quietly. All of us were explorers and we recounted the adventures we'd had together and apart, laughing, remembering the close calls and the total flops. At some point in the night I left the cave to stand outside. Behind me was the darkness of the cave and before me the moon shined over the Potomac, lighting it up like liquid silver. Both deep and cold.

I had spent most of my life here in the forests, but I had gotten a small taste of the high mountains and the rugged deserts of the west and knew that was where I belonged now.

I turned my back to the river flowing east and re-entered the cave to spend what was left of this last the night with my friends, but I was already gone.

-2012-
sleepwalking
new chapter

-2011-
like sedona?
torn in two
blink
bridge to nowhere
door
hitting the wall
elusive 2
elusive 1
ascenders
voyage
hole
icarus

-2010-
revisited 2
revisited 1
which way?
the pit
treasure
narrow
snowfall
chute
false floor
monolith
crack
freeze
slice
bunker
beckon
treasure
resolution

-2009-
goodbyes
undercurrents
casting the bones
mountain thief
the deer hunter
strange temple
sanctuary
burial pt. 3
burial pt. 2
burial pt. 1
scarlet fever
rebirth from hell
forsaken
the lower depths
underground lake
stretch sewer
crypt
still waters
shadow movements
meager rations
sw pt.8: geothermal + ending
sw pt.7: lost gold mines
sw pt.6: big tube caves
sw pt.5: gold!
sw pt.4: el calderon caves
sw pt.3: redondo
sw pt.2: ghosts
southwest adventure pt.1
the river
dark salvation
reflections
dreams
the underdark
night odyssey
beginnings