(This one's from the "vault" - I wrote it in 2012, after a hike up the mountain behind the University of California, Riverside, where I graduated in 1975. It was a nostalgic ascent, bringing to mind and heart the many climbs I made of it when I was a student there - and recalling my sentiments in that era...)
Climbing
the stupendous weight of possibilities,
toward the brooding glint of any-time-now,
into the outrageous orange glow
of setting smoggy sun
sizzling on a stony mountain,
sending shadows eastward
toward nada-land.
My thoughts boiled off
into the invisible aether
interbeing everything around me
as I ascended the steep thrust
of bouldered granite.
A cityscape crystallized below.
Ravens squawked above,
gyring over their roosts.
Sycamores, drunk with vehicular CO2,
clung to the crotches of mountain ravines.
Unwritten books bubbled in the bottom of my mind.
Possible poetry oozed from the subtle glands of my spirit.
My testicles composed an invisible testament
of will to exist beyond myself in union with Her.
University courses decomposed
in the compost heap of my consciousness.
Literature metabolized in the liver of my mind.
Calculus and anthropology stewed in the slow-cooker of my soul.
The crunch of decomposed granite under my bootsteps,
The lightness of my skinny body, nearly effortless
in its bounding up and down and around the what-the-hell mountain
piled high with edible tomorrows and delicious somedays.
I ate the idea of a Joshua tree
and then picked my teeth with the sliver moon.
I'd rather be writing this now than then:
I couldn't have predicted the aftertaste.
Actualized yearnings, undertaken urges, dreamed deeds done.
And still the staggering mountain beckons me up,
giddy with gravity's goofiness,
delirious with the synchronicity of then and now.
Climbing
the stupendous weight of possibilities,
toward the brooding glint of any-time-now,
into the outrageous orange glow
of setting smoggy sun
sizzling on a stony mountain,
sending shadows eastward
toward nada-land.
My thoughts boiled off
into the invisible aether
interbeing everything around me
as I ascended the steep thrust
of bouldered granite.
A cityscape crystallized below.
Ravens squawked above,
gyring over their roosts.
Sycamores, drunk with vehicular CO2,
clung to the crotches of mountain ravines.
Unwritten books bubbled in the bottom of my mind.
Possible poetry oozed from the subtle glands of my spirit.
My testicles composed an invisible testament
of will to exist beyond myself in union with Her.
University courses decomposed
in the compost heap of my consciousness.
Literature metabolized in the liver of my mind.
Calculus and anthropology stewed in the slow-cooker of my soul.
The crunch of decomposed granite under my bootsteps,
The lightness of my skinny body, nearly effortless
in its bounding up and down and around the what-the-hell mountain
piled high with edible tomorrows and delicious somedays.
I ate the idea of a Joshua tree
and then picked my teeth with the sliver moon.
I'd rather be writing this now than then:
I couldn't have predicted the aftertaste.
Actualized yearnings, undertaken urges, dreamed deeds done.
And still the staggering mountain beckons me up,
giddy with gravity's goofiness,
delirious with the synchronicity of then and now.
.