Pioneer

A full days ride to the Park back then,
sometimes two. Up the Old St Vrain
over the top to Estes. The lodges come
into view slowly, shuttered now winter
consumes the landscape, in the old days
they would be full of people and fires
in the same subzero stretch of days.
A Model T would barely make the grade,
but it was still a human grade, a feat
to climb the ridge in snow and stop now
and again to push the automobile further
up the two track road. He would always
have a plan, and come prepared. Outings
were a group affair, and his adventure.
The storms could move in fast and last
for days. But you dug out, climbed out,
worked your way back down the valley.
I have to wonder if he did not feel a need
as I do, something mountains make real,
to stand beyond where you are and see
back down the valley to another time.


         Old Man Climbing

Who could make it up the Gvendarskall ledge
in fog like this? I didn’t do it, again, was up high
on the edge of northern Icelandic wilderness,
but the days are shorter than the mountain’s
quick shadow, and the evening comes on with cold,
so that the blood runs down into your ankles.
It’s easy to get lost these days. One wanders
up and down, and somehow repeats the movements
of this life, the cycles of strength, to this pain
in my calf. The singing use to be outside, and now
it is a singing that constantly fills my head,
and makes me climb the harder, higher, and before
you know it you’re on a ridge you never saw,
in a fog that might be heaven, but by the time
you get back down you’re miles from where you started..