Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘hiking’

Because Today Vulnerable Feels Alive

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 15, 2026| Leave a Comment »




It felt so good to walk in the rain, 
to walk in the rain and not put 
on the raincoat I’d carried for 
over ten miles, to not put on 
the raincoat and let the rain 
soak into my sleeves, my 
shoes, my thoughts, my 
words, let rain soak in 
and realize with each 
squishy step each 
soggy word what 
a gift it is to not
always protect
myself from 
the world.

Read Full Post »

Reunion

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on August 1, 2026| 8 Comments »


 
 
Thirty million years ago, 
a number I can say but cannot
comprehend, the mountains 
 
where we hiked today
were covered in a deep layer
of volcanic ash which somehow
 
formed the spire of Lizard Head Peak.
I am constantly stunned by this world
that makes and remakes itself 
 
out of the same matter.
How complicated, yet how simple:
we all belong to each other—
 
a thought that, for a time, 
made me feel like a crumbling mountain
walking among crumbling mountains, 
 
like a dry stream bed walking 
along the dry stream bed, 
like a clover gone to seed 
 
walking amongst fields 
of dry, papery clover petals,
every step a reunion.
 
 

Read Full Post »

Eco-Grief

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on July 17, 2026| 4 Comments »


 
 
My favorite alpine skinny dipping hole
a dry rock bed, an inverted monument
to drought—
 
as if I needed one more reminder
of how fragile it is, this world,
how parched our hearts
can become.
 
On the long hike home 
I swim in the seriousness
of what is not here,
 
remember how it felt to slip
into the snowmelt,
how my whole being shivered in elation, 
how the earth itself was so alive.

Read Full Post »

Different Paths

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on June 20, 2026| 4 Comments »


 
 
It used to annoy me, 
the way my husband
cleans every trail
he walks on, slowing 
down to kick off the 
smaller rocks, 
stopping to pick up 
and toss the larger ones.
Every. Single. Rock.
Perhaps it still annoys
the part of me that loves
a heart pumping pace,
but now I honor how 
he has chosen this one 
small act as one way
he can serve the world.
But if he could, on our daughter’s
paths, pick up all the obstacles,
I don’t think he would. 
Such a gift for a father to give:
An open hand and heart that says
I will pick you up if you fall.
An open hand and heart that says
I trust you enough 
to let you stumble at all.
 

Read Full Post »

Walking Across Snowfields at Tree Line in May

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 16, 2026| 4 Comments »

 
for my husband
 
And we’re scooching on the surface, 
and we’re skimming on the surface,
and we’re walking on the crust and 
we’re up to our crotches in rotten snow,
sharp crystals scratching our legs,
our shoes drenched, our toes cold,
and we climb out to skim again on the surface
and sink. And skim. Get stuck. Crawl out. 
It was, of course, a relief to find
ourselves again on a dry dirt trail, 
but it was wonderful, wasn’t it, to flounder
and still find our way, I mean 
today, but I mean for thirty two years, 
falling in deep and choosing again 
to take the next step.

Read Full Post »

As It All Comes Down

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on September 13, 2025| Leave a Comment »


 
 
On the day his brother died,
we walked, mostly silent.
The old aspen trees were tall
and dead. In a meadow, we found
a single yellow flower where almost
all else was brown. The air carried
the wild scent of elk, dank, sweet.
And the wind made of dry grass
an epiphany of sound.
But it was the quiet landscape
inside us that was most changed.
In a voice so bare I could hardly hear,
he said, These are the days
that bring us closer together.

Read Full Post »

Multitudes

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on September 7, 2025| 2 Comments »


 
 
Over twenty years ago I walked
this same trail to Hope Lake
and crossed the same creeks
and picked my way through
the same talus which is always
falling in the path. I gathered
ripe raspberries and stared
at the red peaks all around.
Who was I then? A stranger
with my same name. I don’t
blame her for not knowing  
she was young. As we climb,
I hold her hand. We don’t
say anything, I don’t want
to scare her. And who is that,
waiting for us at the edge?
Some future version of me
I can’t quite make out, but
her arms are open. Her smile
says she were expecting us.
And though it’s about to rain,
we all slip out of our clothes
to slip into the deep blue lake.
Quick, I say to all my selves,
and as one, we enter in.
Long after we leave the lake,
inside me, they continue to swim. 
 

Read Full Post »

Little Explorer

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 24, 2025| 4 Comments »


 
 
To walk in the woods
is a kind of prayer.
Come in on quiet feet
and feel how you are not
alone. The golden trees
are full of eyes.
What are those sounds
you cannot name?
Whatever is untamed
inside you sings along.
Dwarfed by awe,
you might feel small,
but the inner song says,
you are all.
 

Read Full Post »

In a Circle of Mountains

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on August 17, 2025| 8 Comments »


 
In a circle of mountains
it’s easier to remember
we belong to the mountains,
belong to high-pitched cheep
of pica, belong to the cliffs,
to the path, to the unpath,
belong to the blue,
blue reach of sky.
 
We belong as much to each other
as we belong to ourselves,
each of us a poem read by strangers
and beloveds in ways only they can read us,
each of us constantly rewriting
our lines, while in the meantime
we are constantly rewritten
by a great and unnamable
is-ness that rhymes us
each to each other.
 
We belong to the truth
that all belongs, even when we
are most lonely, even when
we would rather push away
from the world.
 
In a circle of mountains,
it is easier to practice belonging—
easier to notice this math:
your heart equals my heart,
and all this opening, opening, opening
to what we cannot know,
that equals what a life is for.

Read Full Post »

Just Before We Say Goodbye

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 22, 2025| Leave a Comment »


 
 
The song we’ve been singing
is gone from the air.
We walk in satisfied silence now.
And it’s beautiful,
the trail lined with sego lilies
and purple fireweed.
This morning’s raindrops
cling to leaves.
 
How easy it is in this moment
to believe in forever,
the wild roses
endlessly blooming,
the sound of your footsteps
keeping time in front of mine.

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »