Exigent Futures

"Stanzas on Mount Elbert" - Where we climbed in the berserk air Of trails, sharp spiky views And dizzying vertigo. I watched Marmot and pika dart Among lichen covered rocks Envying not their agility But that they survive On such apparent bleakness. Then, seeing you on the path above, Aspen crook in hand, orange poncho Bannered to the wind, the painter's Famous "Wanderer in the Clouds", Whatever passes between us, Whoever you are, in that moment You were a guide to me. We took The path six inches at a time: with each Breath a step; with each step a breath, Sounds of ourselves reverberating In hollows, in great brown cratered cups of rock Until what was human seemed to be passing Into its sheer facticity.And by the summit, head abuzz in thin air, Pain or joy or confusion heaped as one Into the round bulge Of the mountain's endlessness, it was Almost too comical to have walked there, To worship at that feast of obstacles. And the lakes four thousand feet below Leered crazily. I think We were looking back At what does or does not exist, What the mind mirrors; something To which we do not so much return As turn to, though the turning hurts.