Upstairs

"There is another world, and it is in this one." - Paul Eluard When clouds are lower than you and you know there is an "above them". That high shelf in the closet, above the hanging clothes, where some toy or forgotten thing dwells for discovery. When you have to climb a step ladder to see a space, covered with dust as in the library, in order to clean it, knowing no one might have seen it for years, but it was there all the time. When you find a way into the attic, the balcony, or to the roof as a child, discovering a new place to walk or crawl. When you dream like Jacob and know there are places on a ladder where the small ants of people, then vehicles, then buildings, then a planet, as from a space ship. When you know that second floor place that dwells within your soul, and when you first discover that there are stairs inside that really do lead somewhere. The top of the hill, the mountain above the tree line that doesn't have shade but lets you see the future across the valley and know it's already dusk there. Things will be different. When you fall at night, and land with your head pointed up and you remember the stars. When you sit in the highest branches of a tree you climbed, the ones that are most shaky, most vulnerable, but move just enough in the wind to give stability so you can look down, look out, look up, and look in - as if for the first time. Then we can know transcendence.