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At first through raindrops fat and wet, I go looking for something this Spring I have not seen yet, walking to a place where I know I can find the flowers called Pasque, even though a nagging knee pain has me in doubt I should try, I have decided this is my afternoon’s task, and then the rain stops, it’s now just me, low clouds and the footpath. I tread carefully with conscious purpose to a bend in the trail where I know it is safe to assume I will find the Pasque in bloom. As I arrive the sun does too, lighting both the perfect petals and my life as the sky turns blue and now with a renewed sense of hope I recline on a flower-filled slope and feel an old familiar sense of ease as I breathe in deep a pine-scented breeze 

Yesterday I was in the snow, turning up Left-hand Canyon, flying flakes in the air, snowing in Jamestown, falling like a shimmering shroud on Ceran St Vrain trail, lodging in Lodgepoles, now today I’m wondering where did it go? I’m standing in the sun by a yellow daffodil, in the middle of a Colorado April, once again pondering how time never does stand still. Soon all the creeks will be rising, all that falling snow will be flowing, and the wildflowers will be growing. I have heard it said that as we grow old we grow more wise. But I’m wondering if that is really the case or if it’s really that we just grow more tired? 

I lie on my back on the ground, in the morning chill, feeling under me soft soil, soft grass, at the base of a hill, enjoying the silent thrill, where the prairie meets the pine, where the land rises and doesn’t stop til it reaches a mountain’s spine, above me I see a blue sky, I see a magpie fly, I lie by a lone scraggly pine,  the low sun is behind, and when I sit up my shadow and the tree’s nearly intertwine,  I am a human, alone, in a wild, then I lie back down, my head now on a pillow of stone and I doze for a bit wondering what this place was like before, before humans arrived through nature’s door

Found a good sitting log while out on my snowshoes in the mountains, a quiet spot under a blue sky in a forest of pine,  Green Mountain’s top is in my sight line, Chinook wind blowing in, sun feeling warm on my face, it’s good too just stop in such a place, the snow sparkles with sunlight, wind caresses all that nature possesses,  it’s here for me and it’s free, as I sit on this old dead tree

Snowing lightly but nicely, stopping for a rest with a view of Caribou Ranch , sitting on a  snowy bench, Aspens highlighted with fresh powder, making the ski trail just right, and all alone, have it all to myself, the beauty and the wonder, and the quiet, it brings a peace, a feeling of peace, as I look around watching the flakes fly from the sky, seeing my tracks from where  I’ve gone on by and up ahead where I’m  about to go,  there are no tracks yet in that snow

It’s all here, as I sit on the side of a mountain in soft snow and pine needles where the sun has melted it bare, and the valley drops steep below me and rises across the way to a high mountain ridge, it’s all here as I lounge in a wild all alone in silence, in the solitude, it’s when the quiet comes, my mother would have said there’s nothing out here, but to me it’s all here

A fading season, I walk alone in its’ fading light, the crunch of leaves sounds just so right, there’s a stillness in the air around me, everywhere, I can almost hold it in my palm, brings an inner calm, it’s Autumn’s  dusk, it’s Winter’s dawn, on the fringes of bitter cold, like the fringes in an Aspens’ leaf,  the last of a season’s gold, as a chill wind starts to blow in, and snow clouds swallow the mountains

Feels like I’m walking with old friends, blue stem and switch and indian grass, I see them as I pass, under a sky blue, and they are my companions again as in my prairie past, I stretch out my arm, open my hand, and let the stems slip through my fingers, until at last, I take a seat on the land, take a spot on the earth, and like every other time, it feels like a rebirth

Not much of a ski, but a wonder just to stand and watch in a gently falling snow, with a scolding squirrel in the firs behind me, then a crow arrives with a cry and a coyote saunters by as the snow picks up its pace for a while, the flakes in my face make me happy to be in this place, and my thoughts turn to how I ski where moose browse, how I work where lions and bears walk, how I walk in summer among wildflower blooms, and how good it is just to pause and be grateful

Out in the late Autumn, where rising sunlight danced in the colors, now faded, out among the remains of summer, somewhat skeletal, yet all I see inspires me to look for a long cold night dreaming, milkweed pods have burst, the oaks now taking their turn to turn, I see late falling leaves in gusty winds, I see flakes in the sky, geese on the fly, and I wonder why it makes me want to cry, and though I don’t, with a sigh I watch them go by, then I look up to the mountains high still holding early snow, though, for now, it is gone here below