Up Liberty

by Jordan Collins ‘15.5

We talked about how last night was a birth canal
The two of us started our ascent without expectation
Knowing only that the sun sets and sight fails
Realizing soon what it means to travel as if motionless
Through a vortex that likely led up

To arrive out of such black silence
Pierced only by our dim sphere perception
That miracle headlamp glow, outside of which
Any noise resounded in the imagination
(What surrounded seemed empty, might not be)

Was difficult, changed our bodies
Tricked them into strength outside of space and time
The night became an accidental escape from intellect
Consciousness pushed to the surface like our sweat,
Letting senses carry us forth as it would
On scrambled legs

We were born, this morning, naked
On a mountain, its cliffs conducting
A symphony of orange

Our first wail was a melody
From lives past, our singing caught by the winds
That curve around this world in currents
The precious sting of those high
Breezes on our bare bodies
The essence of creation in sensation

And bliss coursing through our newly pulsing veins