The Rio Grande Pyramid from Pole Mountain
In winter, our world is austere. The mountains’ silent breath barely stirs the naked branches. The hillsides are unadorned. The exposed flats are vast and somber.
There are some who are frightened by the silence. The stillness overwhelms. There is unease in the endless open air. The lack of stimulation, sound, movement, life and lights is not enough.
I find comfort in the quiet calm, in the cold white clear before me. There is consolation in this soft and subdued world. I find my solace in the high country.
Allowed to be alone, allowed to be wild, I am free from social confines and judgments and the language of people I rarely understand. Words do not roll from my tongue; only spin webs within my mind. I am tangled in descriptions of the beauty before me.
Up here, I am allowed to bloom when the earth is dormant. You come, you take what you want, you leave. We are left to hear only the subtle hum of the river beneath the heavy snow, and the pulsing of our blood through our sturdy veins long after you are gone.
I lie back in the snow and know no greater comfort, burying myself for but a moment in the endless, noiseless, soothing white world around me, leaving but an imprint of a snow angel, only to be covered again after the next passing storm.
I do not want more.
Below the ranch looking up
