The Sawteeth

Hiking the jagged spine
of the Appalachians,
fraser fir and spruce trees
stretch hands high above me,
gnarled beeches reach twisted arms
over my winding trail.
Moss beards hanging from birches
upright and fallen touch
moss carpets matted
with leaves and fallen limbs.
Layers of shale dotted
with white and black lichen
push upwards out of gravel
with lungs of ferns perched
on stoic, sandstone rocks.

The terrain in all my sight
is strewn deeply here and there
with greens and browns and reds.
I march heaving through it all
as a conqueror carving
my wicked, caring way.

Breaking through to the top
of my mountain, with the trail, 
I search the horizon, filled
with peaks and valleys,
shadow coves and sunburned slopes.
Beneath my feet, they lie
in spring’s emerald,
fading in the distance
into blue and haze.
Silhouettes migrate, across
the solemn mountains, cast
by flat-bottomed billows
of drifting cumulus clouds.

Standing there, I must but reach
up a hand and scrape the sky,
so I feel alive; still,
I realize I am small.
My staff and I have conquered
these hills, yet they hardly know
I even exist.

This mountain, she has only
to sigh or stretch and yawn,
and then I will be shaken
from the clay where I stand.
The mountain must only wake,
and I will be flung
head over heels or swallowed
into her darkest depths

I may set my feet
on the mountain’s ridgeback,
and I may work my way
through her rippling hair,
may feel exhilaration
and some satisfaction
navigating her breasts,
yet I must mask and scarf
my face against her wind’s whip.
When the mountain breathes her steam,
I must take heed lest I lose
my sight and stumble.
With each step, I must test
my weight or sprain my ankle.
Any path’s edge may crumble,
and I will break my bones.

Nature has only to draw
up her thunderheads
and blot out the sun
and curl icy fingers
about my puny frame,
then I will freeze to the bone
with chattering teeth
and retreating blood.
The mountain must only call
out with the instruments
God gave her as gifts
her warriors of bear
or cougar or wolf
into battle; I will run,
for I am nowhere near
their equal, the fight unfair.
The mountains laugh at me
or else they do not care.

I need Mother Nature
but she lives on without me.
I stoop down to drink
from her crystal streams
just to quench my thirst,
and I pluck blackberries
from her pricking bushes
just to feed my hunger.
She breathes of my breath mixed
with one million creatures’.

Nature embraces,
and nature sweeps aside—
harmonia mundi.

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