So far away

"Stumbled we did,ore rocks and crags, on feet bare, whose tenderness was sacrificed in a heartless tearing, leaving trails of bleeding as we passed on.
Creeping onward still, through the mists, though dark,never quitting were we, mists so thick in their falling, they threatened to consume from our vision light's forming.
Never did we stop believing, never did we doubt, for to do so would have been to give up the only weapons our souls had with which to fight on.
Then in a single fracturing of the harsh bleakness, we found, our feet were climbing up, soothed now, cooled on a carpet of grasses and wildflowers.
Thankfully we settled down in their fragrant arms to rest in serenity, our gazes drifting back to the dark way from which we had ventured, showed us then the secret truth of all we had seen.
As there below us in that dark valley where the sky split with lightening flash, we discovered even there,in the midst of the black, we shone even if in a small light still.
We were even there, in that valley of despair, light, and the belief in love that carried us on held true, for we there had created a most splendid shadowed elegance."

K - writer humbled by your images

I saw your photo, I read your words, this is what my soul whispered to me in answer to your question. Pardon the scattered phrasing, I typed it as my soul dictated.
And in answer to have you ever looked back? -
Yes, some of us have, and indeed, if we allow it, if we give the dark wings, it can be a shadowed elegance, a most splendid brilliance.