The Hidden City (or Running)

The Hidden City

Today I was running in the beautiful park
down the quick wide path
breathing fast, hurried scents
and blurred green, peripheral light,
dark, heavy, quick thudding of careless feet.
It left me out of the breath, windless.
All this in an effort to chase down health,
fitness, some illusory beauty.

I had to stop to let the wind catch me.
Sweating in the stillness there
I saw the light roll out from beneath the door
like the train of the King's courtly robe -
the making of a bright slanting path.
Every intimately detailed face
on every little leaf turned into that Way
and showed another world through stained glass -
a slow, wasteful, everlasting sigh.

Then my heart slowed enough to nearly die
and a slender thing like starlight
twinkled near my feet - a spider's invisible work
unseen but for careful payment of attention
and the kindness of low evening light.
Before my eyes an entire Kingdom wavering in and out of sight.
A leaping prismatic array, a hidden city
ignored, stepped on, disbelieved.