Up on the mountain

Up on this side of the mountain, there are no paved roads ;

But there is clear access to the few dwellings that some hardy souls have carved out for themselves here ,

Just above the treeline , near the summit , which in springtime during the really rainy season, is often lost to a canopy of cloud cover- The ideal zen monks retreat -

An aerie for the renunciate in contemplation

Up in the rarefied air & charged Ion fields/ tracing the dawn roads, near the summit

These narrow paths still visible from the valley floor to the unaided eye,

As they fork their way towards the exposed granite peak, remind me of the bluish veins around the areola of a milk-engorged breast, nipple modestly covered by cloud-

I see this mountain as the mother

Beneath father sky / rising over her

renewing their vows to each other , as the day follows up behind them

And we follow the sun’s transit, earth always turning away west

Scudding clouds / raking shadows across the dry fields of beargrass, The face of the earth , always looking away , and deeper into the dark behind the blue

The sentient Earth / knows no better than man /how far the dark has come,

The yellow star ; just far enough away to allow life -

A lonely perch for the blue eye of earth / and its faithful moon

& I & the faithful moon / are all I know of anything-

I came here alone / through my mother

After a long line of other strangers , who were required to come to earth

Find each other , and start assembling the genetic history / that ended in me

Now - I have had only learned about life from direct experience, and all that memory can retain , yet I have been told by

Others / who would deny my witness - who would have me NOT believe myself-

What I saw felt, heard - all the events of my life -

At times, I would fall in with those would tell me who I was , and what was mine- Then- realizing the foolishness of believing someone else’s eyewitness to one’s own life- I realized that those who may have spoken for me couldn’t , didnt , & cant -

These were the folks from down in the valley, so to speak, who only saw me from a great distance & disturbance- & all the things that happened above the cloud line

Are only mine to remember-

The outliers who chose to dwell above the tree line , were also the ones closest to the nexus of thunder & lightning / all of those people down below, only saw it / heard it after it happened- thinking they were one and the same, and couldn’t understand the language of thunder And what it told us

Of how faraway it really was, and as you all scattered for shelter, leaving the loonies up here / in their alpine isolation , in the maw of this heaven-borne retribution-

Those who dared to come up here / will surely suffer the judgment of the storm

Condemned by lightening

Cursed by the thunder

But -I know, from my tenuous purchase / on these steep slopes & ravines

The elevated places , where the snow arrives before the winter & the beargrass turns orange /brown in submission to the cold-

I was alone the whole time , watching the thunderheads collapse into rain-

I have been to where the grassy slope , gave way to glaciers

The sheer granite crown of the summit / enrobed in priestly white snow caps-

All the this time,

I was up on the fire trail, nestled against the breast of the goddess,

That nourishes the travelers / who never arrive, instead

Are following an ancient path / under the laughing stars

One day- I will walk there with you

& I will lie with you in these fields of starlight-

With the forest and the beargrass & granite spires / drawn secure around us