My Lookout Point  Beverly Koepplin

I climbed to my lookout point today.

I had decided yesterday evening that today was a good day to do that.

I arose earlier than usual this morning, ate well, dressed comfortably

and made sure I had a good bottle of wine laid aside for my return home.

Climbing to my lookout point is never easy

and as the years goes by, it is a harder task to undertake.

Nevertheless, I girded my loins and took the first step

on the path that would eventually culminate at my lookout point.

My climb started easily, and I felt an almost childish delight

at the adventure that was in front of me.

Peered around the corners, looked at the sky,

laughed as the clouds took on fanciful shapes of animals.

And then the path got harder as it slowly ascended,

and I found myself tripping over small unseen rocks,

and thin hard twigs buffeted my body as I struggled upwards.

A slight misty fog filled the air, but I did not waiver and kept true to my path.

The landscape, when I dared to look at it between small, slip-sliding steps,

was darkly gray and black and ashy white

and stick-like trees with charred bark stood sentinel

over what I did not want to imagine and really did not want to know.

At the next turn, the path smoothed, and I stopped to rest.

The fog had thinned, the landscape had turned green and the trees were leafing out.

I could hear water rushing and birds chirping somewhere in the distance,

and I gathered hope close to me as I started out again.

Ever nearing the top, the path wound upward

and the turns came closer together so that my eyes were constantly on the ground

lest I take a wrong step that would catapult me over the steep cliffs

that now lined the path in jagged walls of time-layered rocks.

I knew only that the landscapes varied as the path did

and in the short smooth stretches I caught glimpses

of sometimes the small patches of the barren lifeless lands

and sometimes the green smooth reaches of verdant meadows.

As I got close to the top of my lookout point,

the path widened and leveled out so that I could almost stroll.

One more turn, I told myself, just one more

and I will reach the point where I can look out – over my life.

For the journey to my lookout point is not a physical trek.

It is a path through time from the visions of my soul over the years of my life

to the reality of what I actually see with my eyes when I reach the top.

Today’s trip was, as it always is, arduous and long.

But I can say, quite confidently, that things are looking pretty damn good.

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