The Overlook

 

From far back as my childhood,

One picture lingered,

A rock jutting off a precipice,

A gentle, lush, and flowing steep,

Opening up to a behemoth of a garden,

Bright roses, delicately planted cacti,

Poignant orchids and overflowing bulrushes,

Glowing hibiscuses and scented sunflower faces,

A shy undergrowth,

Carpeted in dainty star grasses,

Spreading gently over the garden,

Each morning, a majestic spectacle ensues,

Tiny dew droplets shine as little insects buzz their way in Eden,

A gentle river flows in the middle,

Meandering, force broken by tiny rock bumps,

Breaking into adorable rapids,

Furious enough to burst into white juts of water,

But still harmless enough,

For a baby dragonfly to surf through each morning,

The garden extends to the other side beyond the river,

Rising gently as before,

Arching at the top to form a sort of a bow,

And thus my escape from the world,

From my precipice, I can survey the whole garden,

Inside here I can enjoy nature at its finest,

The smell of wet dirt,

The itch of a stray grass,

I would escape into this world,

Since my days as a child,

I see this picture often,

I dubbed it my overlook,

My Rivendell,

And my Shamballa,

I grew up reading books my mama bought,

Of the Himalayas, and some prairie farms,

I read to detail, “Cry My Beloved Country,”

But only pictured some tall hill,

With a preacher praying for his damned son,

Never had a lot in the form of visual aid,

So I pictured this and I built it so,

My overlook,

It’s getting dark, power’s almost out,

And I’ve got to jerk it ‘fore the WI-FI goes,

Everything may fall but I’m sure of this,

That I’ll lose it not,

 So, my overlook.