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Today You Traverse the Mountain
"We play games until death comes to fetch us." —
Kurt Schwitters
Who knows how far you wind
along the mountain trail
before the falls become memory,
now and then a clearing,
the sound of water—
or is it regret—cascading.
Each time you stand
drenched in spray,
a rainbow holding you tranced,
you forget the climb back
is more difficult
this year than last.
Rounding an overhang,
you're shocked
eye to eye with a buck.
Before you've had your fill,
he wheels, hooves scattering
rock, underbrush closing
over his flanks.
In the stillness,
the feral odor of galax
rouses that deep fear,
the heaviness you sense
bearing down too fast,
your erratic heart
scrambling upslope.
You stop to rest
on the root-riddled path
that has drawn you up
as often as let you down.
The sun leaves ash, the moon
splits between clouds
stars ticking on and off.
You hardly notice
how weather picks you to shreds.
Hours, days, years
pass in this wilderness.
You being to sing out
the bell-tones of sorrel,
bluets, lobelia, trillium.
The way it is at night
when a child kneels for prayers,
calling all the names he loves
before the lights switch off.
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