Mountain Meaning Vi - Emerald Climb

Climbing up The rugged slope I follow a rope of mountain creek a map has never found Cold rapid pulse I hold from its succulent wrist Cup my thirst To the empty canteen of my hands Sip to lips My body vibrating against the loose blue canopy Overhead Heart pounding Out of breath I slip From the beating sun To a cloak of Alpine Spruce Lean to the shaft of those feathered flung spears Burrowed heads From an ancient ambush Stuck Into the mountainside I slump In their mint shade Arms wrapped best I can Around 700 years of growth The Buddhists say Detach But perhaps They’d forgive my weakness (And maybe this is why and when Jesus was baptized and split from Buddhism as well) For believing we are in a beauty of here and now And oh God my God My wife and children re-born At the foot of these hills Laboring along the same silvery path Calling out like lost Caribou calves I am here I am here I echo back As I tear like breeze In the angled needles of these trees I am certain all have souls Living forever and ever and ever and ever.