a little rich
cascade
in free fall  

across stones
not yet slippery
of moss

water in
communion
with the being

a forest
sprouted
within

making
branches
of arms  

trunk
of
torso

fruit
of the
heart

now
skipping
over and on

astride
like a
creature

barefoot
over jagged
stone

a green silken
gurgle
demon sky...

The smell of inspiration
The desire to keep your pace
The rain in your hair
Coloured in rocks
You in your natural habitat
Walls of canyon stone
The rush of the waterfalls
The pain of the drop
As every senseless breath is gone
You can feel yourself drown
In the beauty of nothingness
In silence and peace
On this loud earth
Where the water falls

Although I try to fight them
Thoughts of his invasion
And of how he was so ******* brazen
Keep hijacked my mind
I know what I'll find

I don't want to look
I dont want to open that book
I don't want the memories
It just fosters my disease

He destroyed my sacred place
He knew that was my space
So cool and calculating
So patiently waiting
Knew when to strike
Out in the woods he'd make me hike

******* stop I scream to myself, just stop
Put those **** memories on the chopping block
Bury them down deep, and hide them
Or your sanity is gonna be looking grim

Think of happier things like butterflies, birds, and bees
Maybe it'll be easier than it seems
But my birds turn to buzzards
My bees die cuz my butterflies are bad *** *******

I'm tired of reaping another's bad actions
This kinda **** just shouldn't happen
But it does all the time
And cops don't give a **** about this kinda crime

So what am I to do
I feel like throwing in the towel, I'm trough
I'm tired of waiting for happier times
Of trying to patch together a life that doesn't rhyme

i, a textilian*,
politely clambered up the faces of mountains
as the valley revealed herself to me
her ready desert face, waiting
to be devoured by ravenous, wandering eyes
the nape of her neck, her chest, her thighs,
slowly~ and all at once

but i, the textilian, drowsily slipped under soft shade
it was only a brook but, it felt like a wave
and the deep creek carries me away,
then brings me back, to this sacred place....
it is nice to wake up to the sun
in your face

until slowly, and all at once, i was awake
and my clothes were on the ground
letting sweet redemption crawl back into my pores
beneath that sky, between those rocks
giving my self away
no mystery, just us three
just hello

hence i, the ex-textilian,
like a newly-molted reptilian
more like an undressed chameleon
in all my ecstatic toughness and alcoholic delirium
have learned more about what it is to be naked
than i've known since i was born
slowly~ and all once

I felt like a backpacker that night.
I think it was the katydids.
At home it’s the frogs,
all shouting over each other, but somehow
finding a rhythm.

But here,
a pulse presses into me in my sleep
and I roll over to face the seething embers.
I know I’ve drawn things out with X,
but this is what narcissism means to me:
stoking the embers each time.

Tonight I am a backpacker
on the west side of a mountain.
Having slept through the sunset,
now I’m lying awake—
sleepless and small—
as ants find their way across my skin.

If they’re not sleeping, they must be working—
long jaunts between brief naps—
while the queen sleeps.

When I’m home,
I’ll close my windows and,
drown these embers in dry reds—
shiraz and merlot—
and sleep like the queen for once.

I watched a spider
walk a webbed wire,
waltzing 'twixt me
and the water.

Thought of turning to words, and
concur did the birds.
Hoisting colors,
not flying more fodder.

For the staff's, (standing tall)
flag is not flown, but tied-on.
And, for it,
the boy seems more chipper.

Still he stares at the stars,
drawn-with, cigarettes, cars.
Doing his best to
pick-out, the Big Dipper.

Though the first carried more miles, the second day of the hike was totally and unapologetically uphill. 
When you ascend, hiking becomes the zen of endurance.



First, you are stripped of all the pleasures of hiking. Your excitement is boiled into lactic acid. Your love for the trail is baked, hardened and dehydrated into thoughts of laying down in the sun until the heat shrivels you into an unconscious raisin.



Try as you may to put on your “isn’t hiking just a slice of heaven?” face, strangers passing you on the downhill stride can only see your “PLEASE GOD, HELP ME OR ******* **** ME” face.

As much as hiking really is a small slice of heaven, there is no denying the living-death of taking 10 straight miles to the knees under the chaffing hell of a 50 pound sack in the relentless sun. 


But when you’re back in an office, sitting on your cushy little ergonomic chair, you long for the sweat and the torture that forces your mind to the ankle deathtraps of mountain terrain. To the deep valley behind and below you, and the crystal basin at the foot of the granite Giants.



The worst thing you can do is ignore the pain—that makes it relentless. Instead you focus on the pain until you become it. The only thing left is the moment between each step, when you remember why you are here and what it is worth. Every time your foot touches dirt, it leaves twice the footprint. One on the mountain and another in your memory where you will safeguard the misery of your ascent and hold on for dear life. One day, when your knees are too weak and your body can no longer table your pack, all the pleasures and joys of the trail that you once thought dissipated in the steam of uphill toil will come rushing back with the magnified strength of every year between you and the present you once knew and respected enough to actually live.

And if you didn’t, if you let it only be pain to get through and not to focus or dwell on, then that is what it is and will always be. A dull memory of pain, dark and somber and incomplete.

Elements, indivisible, naked
A single wayward rain drop falls from above
Clouds a whisper away
Sun heat thawing my helplessness
Tender wind cascading in the space between my fingers
Stubborn bones draped on stubborn rocks
Awake again, surrendering to their dance

I was hiking
With a nine year old boy
The other day

And suddenly he slipped

It wasn't a bad fall
Not even a scratch
I doubt if it even bruised

But he started crying
And screaming

He yelled,
I can't do it!
It hurts too much!
I have to go back!

And I said,
I know how that feels,
But you've just got to keep going
Because I knew he wasn't actually hurt

The thing was,
I was never talking about the hike