I've harkened dark trails, nonexistent of earth. If we went across the spring or across the Snake we'd be bush whacking for sure. I had been on packed earth, trails of dirt on the daytime, not the late midnight snack of predators as I slowly moved past their game trails. Moose and black bears hovered in the willows, while my footsteps fell out beneath me, up to my knees, up to my calves, couldn't somebody have stopped this. Our spotlight blew out, but later I found out the batteries hadn't died. It was just the hold button was locked my fearless spotlight alive, like three small pots of honey, we slowly moved through the thicket, not a creature moved its digits, not even a cricket stridulated. Oddly peculiar we crept around each bush, only to find horse, bear, and cat ****, the bear's so fresh I could squish it. Heavenly fodder, please lead me astray, from everything that's bigger than I, living on these back-trails. Because all I've got is my OKC should a grizzly be hot on my tail. If I bleed I know evil should find me dead or eat me for certain.

Elevation decorated with hues of green, shades of blue
Shapes and sounds that ground the climbers on the mountain

Inside the hardened lungs of the hikers among
is the newest, freshest air
The river that courses through each dip in the Earth
carries sediment as it sculpts
It bends and it breaks the ground that held it in place
it creates a new path to call it's own
It made a new place to call home

Elevation decorated with crinkled water bottles,
elevation drowning in bug spray
elevation soaked from the sweat that rolls off
the bodies of those who finally reach the top

There at the top, elevation and she coexist
Together, they are in rhythm
They breathe in for four, they take in some more,
they exhale the world left below them

In the calm still moonlit night
      she silently wove a silken tapestry -
          spinnerets spewing slender strands
      light as air but strong as Kevlar.

A silvery armature spanned the trail
    clinging to trunks and branches.
          Rappelling down from its pinnacle,
      she fixed radii to her deadly wheel.

Spiraling in from the outer ring
      she knitted her way to the center
          to await the tell-tale shudder
    of a fly or moth flown into her snare.

She took no note of the hiker
      paused alone on the trail -
          transfixed by the dew laden spiral
    shimmering in the rose-glow sun.

It mattered not to the spider
      that a man would find her work pleasing
          and it mattered not to the man
    that the web was not woven for art.