Close your eyes to the air in your face as you fall
And as naturally as a young child struggling to stand
Wings unfold
You learn to fly again
With air
With wind
With life
Exhilarating as the sky that holds you

The beating of the sun
Burning my nose and shoulders
The same which turns the snow to river
Taking soil and dreams and hopes
Down
In violent rush
I can hear from my porch
A quarter mile away.

Another new moon rises somewhere out there where I cannot see
In the lightening sky beside the brilliance of the awakening sun
And I think of how many have come and gone
While I’ve sat here in the early morning hours
Silent alone with my old dog now young dog
And wanted to be somewhere else
Longing for home
Permanence if there is such a thing
I have read about but never found
A place to belong
Here I have been forever a stranger in a land that clings to familiars
Familiars which seem so false
Romanticized memories with no solid core
Shallow and shiny

I remember role models of pioneers and brave souls
Strong women willing and able to step away and try
Working the land raising babies and lambs and lettuce
Instead I find myself in a land based on getting away
As I prepare to leave
Shed my skin that has grown tight and weathered
Strip me clean and wash me free
And watch me step out naked and unbound
Stronger and freer than I have felt in years
Leaving

Leaving a land I have known so intimately
Yet knew had no connection to me to anyone else
A masculine rugged and indifferent land
Perhaps with the wider the view the narrower the vision
I have no attachments here
Anywhere
I fear I leave in anger
All I want is a release

Plans finally coming together
This is not the first time
I’ve been through this before
Here
Plans and preparations and packing
The boxes still stacked in the storage shed
Labeled “books” and “kitchen” and “canning supplies”
Wooden shelves Bob and I built years ago
Thick rough cut blued pine on the walls of our living room
Alongside the wood stove where I sit now warming
And in the empty hallway have been left bare all winter
I have refused to move back
I knew it would not last
And really I am glad
I have been gone all year though you can still find me here
My heart left long ago
Finally my body will follow

The iridescent wings unfurl in the morning air

Another storm comes

     And goes

          And leaves

               A dusting on the front porch

Freshens the still white pasture

That was brown from the sands in the spring winds

Laces the spruce tree with an antique patina as if

Once again I was looking at an old faded photo

On my grandma’s knick-knack shelf

Above her big farmhouse porcelain sink

Somewhere there in suburbia with the little lawn

And front steps where we’d wait for mailman and milk truck.

Yesterday I looked in the mirror

      Something I’m not keen on doing

          And saw

               The silver frosting as if from that snow

I lifted my hand to brush it away

My hand empty but for wrinkles so plentiful on the backside

And I wonder from where these came

On hands still so strong and able and firm

Hands which provide fare and comfort in a harsh world

     Creased with lines

          Deep with stories

How can I be aging when I have yet to grow up?

ice sculpture behind our house

The only solace is the sound of the river
A quarter mile away in the black of the frozen night air
Or the sun on my closed eye lids as I rest against the hillside to catch my breath.
This is my God.
Blind faith carries a strong need
To share what one cannot see.
This is what I see.
This is my church, my temple, my mosque.
Listen and hear these sermons and chanting in the winter storm and spring river.
I cannot be converted but am filled with trust.
I find my answers in the wind.

sun, storm and shadows towards Simpson Mountain

If I am not lost, can I be found?
Find me
In the same place I always am
Forever changing

I find my own way
Because I have been here and wandered alone
Because I have been more comfortable with the company
Of the mountain than man
Because I have spent more time alone with her
In times and places than anyone has before or may again
Because I have no place else to be and so desperately wanted to be
Because too and perhaps most essential
I could sit quietly and listen to her
Ask nothing from her
Sink into her sides and be a piece of her

I could give myself in part to her
And in turn she gave me much more
Her whole self
Without reserve
Without even knowing she gave

So I learned from her, found her private places,
Knew what she felt like, smelled like, how she breathed
I breathed with her as I wandered
The labored breathe we shared as I found my way above tree line
To her exposed but untouched places
And explored draws I had not been up
Simply to see where they would lead
Following her courses like a drug surging through a vein
A reflection of a different world
One I had only seen but could not remain

Here is where I belong
Though not here
A mirror’s reflection of what I long for
I am still deep within the cave

Mountains
My Mother Earth
More of sister I stand beside

She is not only here
But allows me to wander
To find her somewhere else
I will know when I find her
And she will never notice I am there

I am ready
To leave these testosterone mountains* behind
And find my estrogen hills

*an expression and image I borrow from friend and freelance writer, Katy Koontz, who writes about her beloved Smoky Mountains.

the top of our world. photo by Bob.

Affronted by the cold and blackness
My breath is halted for an instant
Overwhelmed by dark and silence
A great and powerful nothing

The void of suppressed sound and movement
Bearing down on me with a pressure that buzzes in my ears

Until my eyes slowly adjust
And the world widens
Horizons expand
Growing to infinite
As the stars begin to reveal their depth
And the silence from the muffled river a quarter mile away
That which I don’t hear
Because of the snow
The ice
The distance
Space which separates
And draws us together

A few steps away from the house
And the light from the windows
Glows pale golden rectangles on the snow
Warm and yellow and welcoming

There
Here
Inside
Outside
Is all for a moment
One

And I am glad to be out here looking in
In there where we are wrapped in cradling arms
Out here where I stand in her dormant womb
So small

A lullaby before settling into sleep

simple shadows in the snow

I watch as it clears the ridge
A small and simple curve of reflected light
Surrounded by a halo of pale silver glow
A perfect round that the full moon would be
She shows herself to me somewhat clearly now
A complete illumination of her secret side
The face she often coyly hides in her dark shadows
Reflecting only her features which stare coldly at the sun

In the white arc
Silhouettes of tall timber from three miles away playing shadow games in the limited light
And here back home
Safe and warm in my cabin with my dog by my side and my boys still asleep
The worries of yesterday are for but a moment forgotten
The fears of my son, our changing home, the world and nature around me

How can I care so deeply
With passion the color of wild rose petals in snow
Or the fragrance of summer rain on sun baked soil
And not risk being hurt
Which opening oneself up seems to allow
Like the invitation of an open door

Or am I better to remain closed
Cold and frozen
Uncaring
A rock face of the winter mountain
Forever facing north and hidden from the relief of the sun

Let my son grow
The world turn
The moon rise
Things fall apart and break
As I sit back and do nothing but watch?

patterns in the snow

In evening the horses whinny and wait and follow me with their gaze
Twelve eyes tacking my every move
Waiting for the one that brings me close to them, to feeding time,
To the satisfaction their dependency upon me brings us both.

The moment of ritual, a forced or created or cultivated nature,
A measure of seasons, balance, and I begin to see, aging…
Time and time and time again
Like a wheel on pavement covering miles
With so many more left to go before arriving home.

(A place and space I wonder if we ever reach)

A pattern to our lives
The rhythm of day into night and back again
I slip into my rubber boots and zip up the parka
Without thought involved
Going through motions, mindless and calm,
The same I have done for how long and for what reasons.

Day in and day out
Over and over and over again
Time and seasons repeat in a predictable arrangement
And find myself balanced from the simple acts
Grounding in a otherwise ethereal life
Without such solid archetypes as our rituals provide.

The few givens to our day
Knowns to our lives
Comforts to our chaos.

early morning late summer under the Rio Grande Pyramid and Window

I remember
Shadows unveiling
Like opening doors
Darkness slips away
Frost on the grass
Turns to dew
With the first touch of the sun
A line of brightness
Descending the mountain
Inching across the meadow

I am out there in the still frozen
unmoving cold morning
On the other side of the Divide
Even in summer we are pressed to feel warm

Now where is it all
Under how many feet of snow
When and where were the last feet
Touching the hidden earth

Here remains no connection
In a land too proud to allow

a rose on a rock in winter

Wind
A poem by Gin Getz

I watch them easily swayed
Tall grasses out on the flats of the Divide
Lush wet land between the peaks
For how many months left to live
Where snow settles and collects and contains
The load of the harsh world around it
Seed heads ripe and rich and full of a simple story
Secrets to blow in the wild winds
Seeking a place to settle and belong
How little of their control
Is not unlike how I may stray

How large this land that surrounds me now
Of which we will never be a part
More than the ashes scattered
Spread thin and bare like seeds in the wind
Struggling to grow in the short season
Above tree line how life exerts
Or a rock settled in the river bottom
Tumbling down to lower ground
In the brown waters of May
Violence of the mountain unleashed
In her wet and roaring fury
Here I am
But where will I remain

In a strong wind
With the storm of winter screaming
My voice is silenced
Lost
A child playing in the woods
Tall grasses swaying in a hidden meadow
Seeds left to scatter

The smell of earth in the air
Wind from the west
Where perchance snow has just melted
Leaving moist soil exposed

And beneath the soil
A solid rock
I dig down to find this hard place and space

A quiet voice
Wind through leafless trees
A landscape in shades of grey
I blend in
Smudged like a charcoal drawing
No lines to be defined
No voice heard above the wind

sundown at pole creek, photo by Bob

Darkness of the early morning

Stillness as the rest of my small world remains asleep

Contented breathing and the whisper of the wood stove

A space and place for my mind to wander

It takes off and I dash to keep up

Wild horses running on the plains of my imagination

Behind them dust settles

Silence returns

And words pour onto paper

Light slowly comes to the sky as I lift my focus from the screen of the computer.  A pale silvery grey showing me no further than the mountains that contain and protect me.

What about the world beyond?  Somehow it no longer seems right to be stuck in a land where others cling to no more than memories and find that to be enough, yet my mind searches elsewhere for true meaning. Deeper waters beyond the shallow pool.

You will find it within, I have been told.  Limitless, bottomless; I fear I may drown.  Choppy waters that long for relief. We seek walls to contain us, boundaries to define us.

I find purpose in the connection between hands and land.

What more will bring us to the place where we belong?  It can be anywhere.  I can be here. Today.  Tomorrow perhaps somewhere new.

What lasting connection can there be without labor?  Shall we stake a claim and say we deserve and expect to be given and think it shall last?  Or do we build and toil and create, and grow with our creations?