9853 Feet

[Trab]

9853 Feet

by Trab

I stood naked upon the land,

Forced from my cocoon of comfort and warmth

By nighttime need as old as all mankind.

Fingers of cold delicately stroked my skin,

Dancing it to pimpled awareness;

As the silence of the deepest night

Screamed out my solitude.

Behind me, dark, yet clearly lit,

Lay my domed tent,

Small, insignificant, civilized.

Around me, dark, yet no spot of black,

Lay the dome of my star studded reality,

Vast, primal, raw.

I stood naked upon the land,

Forced from my cocoon of comfort and warmth

To nighttime wonder as old as all mankind.

Fingers of awe delicately stroked my mind,

Dancing it to subtle awareness;

As the glorious beauty of the deepest night

Celebrated my solitude.

I stood naked upon the land,

And I was complete.

Copyright 2008 by Trab. All rights reserved.

[Cole Parker]

Really fine writing, Trab. How many of these things do you have squirreled away? You need to bring them out into the light.

C

[Bruin Fisher]

I really like this poem, Trab, for lots of reasons, including that it describes something that I love. Minimalist camping in wilderness. Fantastic. The language is heroic, soaring, even though it's describing someone who's had to crawl out of his tent in the middle of the night stark naked for a pee! And the description of the majestic dome of the night sky in comparison with the tiny dome of the tent is very effective.

Lovely and well worth reading and re-reading.

What's the significance of the title? The height above sea level where you were camping?

Bruin

[Trab]

I wrote that about an hour ago. ADP has tried to encourage me to submit more, and certainly try my hand at more, and I'm working on it. I don't have much imagination though, so my stuff is written from personal experience, with only the most minor side-steps away from stark reality.

[Trab]

That's right, Bruin. That's what the GPS told me, and truth be told, I struggled to describe the sheer awesome majesty of the experience, which had nearly brought me to tears, and certainly caused me to gasp, but words just fail to deal with it, and so I decided to not even try to describe it, one jewel at a time, dealing instead, with the feelings it invoked.

[Richard Norway]

Oh Trab, you brought back so many memories to me, happy memories of being out in the wilderness. At those times I had also wished that I was alone to be able to be one with our world, naked, without pretense. Thank you for that. What a supreme piece. I really loved this one.

Richard

[Rubilacxe]

For me, this piece reminds me of a camping trip in Northern Quebec after having travelled several hundred miles to the campground. There we me with the other campers and soon were added to their "fest" where we had baked beans that had been baked for two days in a large pit filled with burning logs to surround the 'pot'.

After having our meal, I wandered away from the fires and the noise and the people to come to a knoll where I looked up at the heavens and beheld the stars, the innumerable stars, the majesty of them and my awe at all of this while basking in the silence of the glow in a place much like those of yesteryear when things were simpler, cleaner, and basic.