Category: Uncategorized

Past Boulder falls, mountain skyin, flakes flyin, remembering where I took a fall, yet the mountains still call, to Caribou nature Ranch, to a Ponderosa pine branch, to a spruce and maybe a moose, to Aspen and fir, always brings a stir, with time just to sit, for a bit, all alone in a wild

It’s a January morning, season not yet shifting, snow is still sifting, it falls beautifully, past branches of evergreen, as I snowshoe into a forest serene, just a walk in the woods, away from the shoulds, but now the snow fall has stopped, and so have I, feels like my world takes a sigh, where I sit tracks tell me an elk has passed by, a small snow-covered evergreen brings me a sense of calm, knowing it will likely be here long after I am gone, brings a comfort as I rise and walk on.

It was in the dark of December, a time I remember, when the days had turned longer for certain, outside the window curtain, snow was falling in the night, in the morning I walked in the dark of dawn, out of the night into the light, out of the high plains and foothills up onto the mountain, where there was a fox for me to see, both of us sitting in the snow, and before I saw it go,  falling flakes surrounded us, whitening the ground, and in the solitude, quiet was the only sound.

In my years I have been to mountain high and under prairie sky, I have gone into the snow and where the wildflowers grow since I was a child, and still it calls, I want to be in the wild, just let me go, just let me disappear into a snow, into the swirl, into the twirl, up a trail, because nature, it’s beauty, it’s solitude, it’s connection to life, still thrills, it still calls. 

Mountain bluebirds perched on mullein stalks, voices at the moment mute, as I sit in the foothills, in the land of the Arapaho and Ute, aware I am a visitor, I come and go, I live down below, I watch a woodpecker arrive to perch on another mullein stalk, it lives in this wild preserve where I have come to sit and walk, where sunlight glints on the tops of grasses and tall Ponderosas line paths that lead to mountain passes, but I am here just to observe and listen, to be alive, just to be present. 

Out in the late Fall walking, leaves still dropping, feels like nature is talking, I find it calming to be surrounded by its colors, especially those fading, I find it invigorating to be in its cool air, I find I want to stop and just be there and then the time for falling snow comes again, and for a time leaves too are still falling.

As the sun is setting in my life, as the colors go dark, as the night grows cold, as I’m getting old, and there’s nothing I can do about it, something inside me wants to just shout it, I’m glad to have lived, and then as I find myself walking in skeletal Autumn, walking on old dry leaves, it stirs emotion, and I get the notion that I’m a walking skeleton moving through the remains of Summer, in the month of the dying grass moon, aware, like the seasons,  I will be gone all too soon.

Peaceful valley, I need you, now. Let your paths entice me, aspen and spruce surround me, ground uphold me, wind console, water stream by me, Fall inspire, let acceptance abide, peaceful valley, in your seclusion, for a time, let me hide

Cottonwood leaf, fallen, lying in the stream as if waiting, still summer, though September, the season of seeded sage, broomweed and asters, and I am waiting too, not waiting for anything in particular, just paused, later sunflowers shine in the setting sun, and for some reason they bring to my mind the idea of hope as the day is ending, but the trouble I have with hope, is that it is needed at all