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Posts Tagged ‘mountain’

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.

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The Clearing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on August 11, 2025| 2 Comments »


 
 
I want to give myself to life
as completely as the corn lilies rising
from the floor of this clearing.
 
All summer they have practiced
growing from tightness
into an ecstasy of green unfolding.
 
Where have I yet to unfold?
So often I clench around my fear
so long I no longer notice I’m clenching.
 
But here at tree line, there is not
one corn lily still trapped in its tightness,
all of them, now unfurled,
 
beginning their push toward goldening,
toward falling back to the earth,
toward moldering toward nothing.
 
That utterly, I want to give myself.
Want to become the clearing.

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After Difficult News

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on September 22, 2024| 7 Comments »


 
 
It’s enough to wander
alone in the woods
while the aspen
turn their leaves
into shimmering light.
This, too, is aftermath—
the brilliant red
of rose hips,
fat and sweet.
The clean scent
of rain. Holy fluff
that was once
yellow flowers.
The vast gold
field of grass.

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Why I Should Hike Every Day No Matter What

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 21, 2024| 10 Comments »


 
 
I didn’t know how trapped I was
in my own busyness until,
walking past a quiet lake
and up through a lush spruce forest
I felt how with each step toward tree line
more calendar squares disappeared
and all my lists dissolved until
I was nowhere but wading
through waist-high bluebells
with corn lilies rising above my head.
How still my mind was then, still,
as I traversed creeks and clambered
over fallen trees. Still as I climbed
to the place where the clear water
streams down gray cliffs and yellow
monkey flower flourishes on the banks.
I was bathed with gratefulness.
Is it true that to know this freedom
once is to be able to carry it
like a touchstone in my body?
Will the larkspur have any dominion
tomorrow while I’m trapped in a deadline?
Will the scent of summer’s last wild roses
return when I’m scrambling
for just ten more minutes?
Oh freedom, I long to contain you.
That thought makes me laugh.
Yet it’s true. I long to find myself
mid-hustle still linked to the gurgling stream,
its waters so cold I can’t help but gasp.

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Woodsy

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 18, 2024| 8 Comments »

somewhere above Telluride, Colorado


If you close your eyes and just breathe in,
then it’s sixteen years ago and we’re off the trail
roaming through damp autumn woods.
The duff is soft with needles, moss,
and the air is scented with resinous spruce—
fresh and woodsy, tangy, bright.
Sun filters into the evergreen glade
to kiss the clearing with light. Remember, love?
Whatever dreams we brought in with us,
they, too, came to smell of earth, forest,
musk and shade. The mountains
had their way with us that day.
We said little, but by the time we left,
shadow-drunk and gloriously map-less,
everything had changed.  

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One Vacation

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on November 26, 2023| 4 Comments »

joy in the city—
we return home
to sleep like mountains

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Perspective

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 15, 2023| 13 Comments »

And the mountains rose
and eroded completely
and the great sea flooded all
and the great sea left and
the great sea flooded and left again
and the land was forced up,
and then pulled from both sides
until the center broke
and slid down to create a great rift
and the volcanoes spewed lava
and the ash covered all
and the glaciers scrubbed
and the rocks avalanched
and the earth slumped
and today I sit in the valley
and stare at the mountain
with a dusting of white
on its wide shoulders
light gathering in its clefts
and think, my god,
isn’t it peaceful?

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One Fast Track

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 5, 2023| 6 Comments »

glissading down scree fields
each step forward is five steps—
wishing this for your heart

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Going Round Trip

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on March 29, 2017| Leave a Comment »

 

 

 

After the first half mile

my shoes are soaked through

from post holing through knee deep snow.

There’s still a long way to go,

and the hike is for pleasure, after all,

so I decide it’s not so bad,

the squish of my socks,

the chill seeping in.

It’s just another way to remember

I’m alive, and though it’s slippery

and slushy, the trail,

and though I’m less nimble

than I’d wish to be,

look at that blue, blue sky,

and oh, my long shadow,

see how eagerly it leans to the east.

 

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Two Hiking Above Treeline

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 28, 2016| 2 Comments »

 

 

 

with every step

losing the need to struggle to say

what can’t be said

 

*

 

carving away

the women I’ve been until the only one left

is the one walking

 

 

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