Looking into the light

Where does the mountain end and the sky begin
When we find ourselves so close to heaven
Melting wings of wax to hold us

I lose myself in another storm
Silken sky falling
Following me
Or perchance ahead
Awaiting my entrance to its icy lair
Tempting teasing taunting
I can not resist and fall in

At times it seems we barely touch down
Floating in this sea of white
Moving with the ease of a dolphin
Parting waves
Parting ways
We fall through
Gasp for air
Grasp for solid ground

I remember red

The mountain sleeps
Naked and white
Do you remember the color red?
Raw and unrefined
Exposed like a deep wound
Bleeding
Pouring forth
The woman that I am
On the side of the mountain
Cut open by the river
Flesh
Healing
Soothing
Carry me away in a wash of white

How easy it is to forget.

Waves of white and shades of grey

Naked trees glowing before Pole Mountain on an autumn afternoon.

The world around us begins to fade and color mutes to shades of brown and grey. It is softer now, subtle, sensuous, plain and transparent.  The flash and dash of summer have passed.  This is what I was longing for.

The pencil drawing of our mountain in winter light begins to take shape.  Lines and contours and curves and distance, all blending into one under the cloak of the leafless hillside.  Long shadows even midday in the orangey light of late autumn.

The mountain has not quite settled in for the season.  It is still slightly abuzz, though one must stop to listen for it now, with the last of the hunters and a couple of tourists remaining, the summer homes abandoned again. 

A solitary robin we saw yesterday while out riding, under a spruce tree in a tucked away south facing drainage. I had not seen one in weeks.  They too, in their numbers, have left.  We wondered if this one was perhaps injured, but we left him, turned our horses down the trail and rode on.  I thought of him after we were long gone.  Was there anything I could have done, or are we right to leave the wild in the wilderness, and let their fate be decided by the mountain?