FINISH HOLD - #17 - Before

Words by Katie Ives

“What about that?” he said over and over, pointing to each new sequence as if it were a game, and I, who had not yet fallen, still a novice, reached up for a jug hold and swung my body into a lieback, feet crossing, hips twisting back and forth up the cave roof, above the broken concrete blocks, the limestone rippling yellow and purple, as the shadows wavered, cool as underwater plants; the air rising humid from the river's muddy banks, its current, dreamlike, low; I could feel it floating through me; above his nervous, staccato laugh, his steady gaze- and I felt weightless for him. Then caught between the slip of a hand on dried mud and the reassurance of the next hold pressing sharp against my palm; between the loose earth of the topout and the scrabble over tree roots; between emerging into the sun (too bright, I closed my eyes) and running down the stairs back to him: somewhere in there, a world opened briefly and shut. But for now, at the base of the cave, I had the summer evening, the warm tones of his praise, the riverlight deepening to gold, cast up against the walls in the patterns of waves, where the fossils glittered-this hidden treasure found once and never again.