North Lied To Him

North Lied To Him

As he walked alone among the thick trees,
He thought of that day long ago
In his room,
Gazing down into the drawer.
Hundreds of abandoned keys glistened,
Their sharpened teeth
A pile of metal
Haphazardly arranged like gray rocks
On a craggy beach.
Tags with scrawled notes of ancient attachments,
Both ardent and perfunctory,
Reflected the cold glint of tarnished silver,
Jaggedly similar but
No different to him
Than a hundred penguins on a rock.
Infinite anonymous duplicates.
But each unique to a lover mated for life.
Irreplaceable to their distant owners
Who carelessly forgot them
Or left them as mementos.
An irony of abandoned security.
Provoking memories of ecstasy and crisis,
Beginnings and endings of moment or insignificance,
These tangible symbols of access
Reminded him that
The heart bound key he sought was lost.
He ached over the frozen unyielding lock,
Seeking a key that could be as simple as a word.

His mind rejected them all that day
Amongst the trees.
He had misplaced the key of feeling,
The key that could magically free the secrets
He yearned to open.
Those heavy bank vault doors of discipline
And denied emotions
Of wondrous moments deferred and declined,
Of profound experiences never experienced, Mysterious, alluring and imagined.
A key of awareness that when possessed
Served absolutely
Like an iron needle magnetized and
Forced by nature always to tell the truth of one’s direction.

But that day, walking in the woods,
Amongst puzzling paths,
All appearing to be a procession to the pinnacle,
He was directionless.
His steps a circumlocution.

The trees were familiar to him.
He knew them
Until that very moment.
Standing at the black perimeter of the fresh forest.
In an instant,
Like lightning on a cloudless day,
His compass demagnetized.
And North lied to him
And led him directionless.
The safety of mind abandoned him.
His gyroscope spun not knowing down or up.
While curious invisible creatures of the forest,
Never lost, living and alert,
Were puzzled seeing him misplaced.
And he looked at that moment
For an answer among
The keys he carried.
Keys that sat lifeless in his hands.
And he knew then that the answers were not there,
But in the very metal in the mountain
On which he walked.
In the sounds of the wind in the leaves,
The light aroma of pine
The sun glinting through the tall limbs,
And in the cracking of his footsteps on brittle branches.

Suddenly, he found no need for direction.
He knew he was standing exposed at the center
And all paths led him to
Where he always yearned to be.
His senses congealed and
Brought awareness of all time and space to him
This perfect place within him,
And breathlessly, and quite unexpectedly,
Quietly and without so much as a sound or a warning
Softly, he opened his keyless heart.