Heart's Toll

Heart’s Toll

                                 

So high, so precariously high

Slung between rock walls

 like the delicate thread

 of a spider’s web

I step on my brakes before Bixby Bridge 

then peer out to see the waves ebb and flow

260 feet below

Awestruck by it’s magnitude

self-importance no longer apt

even my courage gets tapped

So unsure, so surprisingly unsure

Sunset sweeps all color from the sky

coastal fog drips down the slender spikes

of a lone Yucca Whippley Eye  

So complete, so intimidatingly complete

Windswept Cypress, Statuesque Sequoia

thriving without a need

yet without them man cannot succeed

So dependent, so naturally dependent

My hair whips above my head in fits.

as maverick winds nip at my neck

like a whiskered kiss.

So wild, so insatiably wild

California rubs her rugged shoulders raw

against a deluge of tides and seismic rides

Hammering sculptures that fill me with awe.

So transforming, so constantly transforming

A biker pulls off  Highway 1 

unlike me, he’s bold 

aiming his camera like a gun

framing Big Sur, as if it’s his to hold

So cavalier, so casually cavalier

I stand before the daunting divide of land and sea.

Resigned to forgo visiting Esalen and Nepenthe’s

My tension sinks roots like a tree.

So irrational, so ridiculously irrational

Suspended spans, celestial overpasses

the song of the road’s no longer Earth bound

I crave the sound of solid ground

So secure, so satisfyingly secure

It's not whether I forge ahead or waiver

it’s connecting with my heart’s toll

that ultimately makes me braver

So uniting, so courageously uniting

Patience steers me like a sage

straight into the fear and pain

that leads my pen across the page

accepting the mystery of who I am.

-Emily Bording
Capitola Book Cafe