Mindful glances and dizzying views. these roads are many, they lock into each other. weaving hearts and breaths. clattering laughter. bemusing trails of wavelengths and faded hues. lifted spirits and drowning woes. the air is heavy colourless and silent, watching us wander. heavy are the dark pathways of the night here, casting slumbering shadows over misty eyes. the highs of these scapes are inescapable, confronting and decoding our internal muck and grind. the soft dust nestled under each step settles, alongside chanting pebble-foes, dislodging and comforting the terrain. what once was oceanic desolation is alive under the sun. yet water flows through bodies molten and held together with fluorescent bones. these people shine with glimmering pupils, contracting with the skies above. there is an urgency in their tone and excitement to be defined by word or banter. a gathering of comfortable nomads. there is a home at the center, beating and thundering to the call of their lives. a cycle of mindful glances and dizzying views, moving across the echoes of yesterday. those forgotten pathways and frozen rocks from another time.
Ps. This prose poem is from my time volunteering in the valley of Misgar, located on the edge of Hunza District in Gilgit-Baltistan. A meeting place for the borders of Pakistan, China, and Afghanistan.
