Thisway and Otherway

Unless you're standing at the edge of a lake on a very clear and very calm day, there is an Otherway world that can easily be overlooked. Even then, unless the stillness happens to catch your attention, you can walk right by it and not even know its there. But if the warm breeze holds its breath and listens long enough, if the clouds above strain to catch its reflection, you can stand for hours and gaze into it. It's a place not quite like our own––for if it were, it would not be worth mentioning at all––where the colors play together, where sometimes green is yellow and yellow can be blue, and the way they dance and mingle is evidence of magic. Rays of sunshine hum the tune and the heartbeat of the moon marks time, and together their music keeps the sideways world in motion. Our heaven is their earth and the flowers and trees sprout out of the constellations and grow in a winding and gently undulating line downward, a green canopy for clouds and clouds for mountains.If you stand long enough, a dog at your side, not pulling on the leash but sitting and watching the far shore where the ducks and geese mingle below the tall yellow reeds where the darting black birds perch, the place where the two worlds meet is little more than a line, and soon even it fades as your vision grows blurred and you feel the pull of that silent moon music deep inside your bones, pulling your muscles, tickling sinew and flesh until you're not sure which world you belong to at all, which feels more like home. But then, eventually the breeze will grow tired of waiting for you to make your choice and will whisper the truth, rippling that line, breaking that neat little window and forcing you back into your own shoes on the sandy shore where you've been standing hypnotized, your good dog still at your side, waiting as if you never left at all.