We failed the summit that year
Diamond Peak
summer of 1974

There on a razor's edge ridge
sheer drop to the east
thousands of feet
certain death on that side
no safe path forward

And the way we had come
an arduous boulder-strewn *****
Angle of Repose.

As we pondered our next move,
I told my friend a story
that had just come
into my thoughts.

A young man,
as we were,
promised his friends
he would fly.

To their horror
he stretched his arms
toward the sun
and leaped into the chasm.

Most saw a young man
in the long arc of his demise
falling to earth.

But one sharp-eyed friend
saw a fierce bird of prey
come rising
with the winds
and land
there
on that ridge
where we sat
and from which he fell.

The story was a presence
there between us.
We sat together
lost in its meaning.
And then it happened.

A bird of prey,
entirely white,
unknown to us,
perhaps unknown
to Science,
came rising with the winds
from below
from where that boy in the story
had fallen.
It landed on the outcrop
from which he
(in the story)
had jumped.
This magnificent creature
turned its impenetrable gaze
to us
and screamed.

The instant the bird alighted
and flew down the mountainside
we leapt to our feet
to follow.

What came next
took place in myth.

In that myth,
we were heroes
able to run at full speed -
some would call it a breakneck pace -
down that long mountain *****
Boulder-strewn.

Without fear
Without hesitation
in full stride
one boulder to the next.

Boulders the size of cottages
Some the size of a grey whale
mysteriously beached on a mountain.

Flying more than running.

With the falcon as a guide
we wandered the afternoon
through trackless
wilderness.

A timeless afternoon
in the Garden.
And then humbly
back to camp.

You might not believe this story.
But it is a story
as true as myth
and every bit as real.

here
in the battered chambers
of this once vital heart
the uneven echoes
send signals of it's impending failure
the body relaxed in the haze of morphine
the mind alone in the dreamscape before death
a magnified tapestry of color
Sun and golden fields from a VanGogh painting
move within my thoughts
swaying and quelling the offbeat of distant drums

a lone leafless tree
a branch holding lines of crow
awaiting the rain
turn to see me
'follow them'
a voice whispers from beyond the wheatfield
they take flight
as do I
towards the darkest of the ominous clouds
'this is so worth it' I thought
just before the lightning snaked it's way across the blistering blue sky
releasing me from my mortal coil

I had to smile as I hovered there
watching them zap me again and again
bless them for their perseverance

If you're ever on the riverside
where the sun beats your head
you would see the old man
selling hats of palm leaf
but you care not to notice him
having already smelled the sea
and too keen to cross the river
travel southward on the island
till the saline wind scalds your eyes
your skins itch to jump into the waves
yet the man with the palm leaf hats
would not cease to tell you
how burning would be the sun on the sands
and so badly you need to protect the head
by parting bucks that mean nothing to you
but a world to the mouths he feeds
and before you stamp on him a final no
she has one atop her hair
beneath which her eyes flutter like butterflies
her sun rouged cheeks untimely blush
and two born anew lovers
merrily head for the sea
having bought romance
for forty bucks.

Mother Ceres
hair trussed and
braided like an artichoke,
smiles down on this mad scene.

Bums asleep on every littered lawn,
cripples, drunks,
businessmen, young women
move by in the shattered light,
pacing to some cynical drum,
proceeding from
place to place.

Armageddon looms
with the stink of diesel
and a sudden roar.

Slow motion bodies
crawl, skip and hop.

The light grows white and
whiter yet. The ***** bus window
cracks
and outside
all is very still.

A head fashioned
from cold stone,
blank eyes seeing all.
A smile matching Death
to his lithe sister
Love.
A smile.

Demeter!
Ceres!
Mother of summer,
the dry wind.

Love the hollow stone,
the dust, the poisoned air.
Love this poor harvest.