Snow Mountain

Shelter, warmth, cradled by blanket. Aware of Shasta so present and awake. Moonlight bright, reaching spotlight full snow abounding space, mounds of white planets stacked under my feet. Black horizon burning stars surging blue. Glittered ice crisp crystals, silver glass, powdered dust layered in sheets of ivory fabric laced with fiber optics, carpet starched snowflakes crushed into footprints. 

Sink, sinking to my knee, legs not tired, I am tired, subdued by a calm curious world. Gravity spontaneously fierce on the drag, after being a surface walker, lift the knee, just lift the knee, over the colorless sphere rotating down. I walk the rounded white line reaching the sky, like in a children’s story, the moon the brightest I’ve ever seen.

Just past twelve thousand feet, I am tired water. I dry heave and spit. Snow calf deep, knee deep, the summit fading like one of those stars burning white and blue, almost invisible. Daylight’s wrist watch has crept behind my back, yet I welcome the change.

Deepest darkest blues against snow mount hills and green pastured treetops, makes all the world seem like a dream- a different place, with mysteries under my feet, and above my head, none so evident to me as the moment of now. Silence, listening to new sound, noise of elements and their vibrations, letting myself go even quieter, I inhale and enjoy the view.

Sculpted, powdered mountains, in twilight, and at the end of purple, yellow strands of golden pinks spawn into hue, turquoise enters the strong line between night and day, and the grays begin to shadow. Warmth crosses my body, over my ice boxed feet- healing my mind. Bare inside, It’s bare outside, empty stomach growling, open space, I feel connected with earth’s resources.

In the distance, I view picturesque lands of the Trinity Alps, eyes tracing rugged ridge lines, peak to peak, sleeping to snow’s peaceful lullaby. I think of being lost again in its many valleys and magnificence. Exquisite Shasta, and on her strong terrain challenges never lack. I go on, I go down the mountain, down to the places we all go, and back to the comforts of all the stupid things I love.

In the house, breathing deep, remembering cold crested air in my lungs, wondrous stretches of elevation drafted out in it’s transparent glory, and captivates all my attention today. The day that just hours ago, was up there- alone and in an alien world. I hold you in my eye, snow mountain next time soon, with the merry month of spring at my side.