Swirling, whirling, worlding snow

Shimmering, soft white into half lit fog

Walking up my mountain

From home to peak

How many lives have I made this journey?

Now, frosted Aspen branches

Delicate, curling intricately

Telling their gnarly story silently

Thriving, striving, intertwining

Barely visible in blazing sun

But now, icy frost gives them voice

Burgeoning, budding a snowy history

Thinking, reflecting, working up this hill

Active, passive

Relationships, meaning, beauty, grammar, structure, analysis

Intertwined in different temporalities

With these branches, this snow, my mountain

We kiss each other as our distances

We silently mingle in ways not present

Undercurrents never seen

But shown up from time to time as history, as frost

Soon to melt and return us to our anonymity

This road, I labor to the top

Winding as the Aspen branches

Now, viewing brilliant white fields

Made by ravaging, relentless fires

Another history shown by the dark, burnt tree trunks

Set against the white snow and half lit fog

I reach my peak

This place where the earth ends and the sky begins

I kiss eternity with my frosted beard

I stand erect towards my end, my mortality, my horizon

I stare into an abyss of half lit fog blowing snow

Not seeing past this eerie gray curtain

But knowing the expansive precipice,

the mountainous splendor that awaits another day

I marvel at my swirling, whirling, worlding, shimmering, glimmering

Presence

And what remains below, underneath, silent

But giving birth to the stars and the earth

This my place under the sky, over the earth and intertwined with all

This my mountain between peak and home is my soul.