Walker Knob

immersed in mountains

a view opens up before us,

as the mountain drops half-angle away,

the Great Fire eliminated most of the trees

who had blocked the view with their own selves,

now the great mountain and his nearly great mountains 

dominate the view and our souls,

meanwhile roots race to uplift shoots unto the sky around our feet,

while pines confidently have sprouted from fire-triggered seeds,

and already start to clutter the way with their knee-high exuberance,

a year or two more and we humans will no longer

find an ease coming up and down the long ridge,

the lower way already a bramble of downed heath branches and trunks,

all tough and intertwined as if designed to thwart our movement,

today was of family, as my wife, sons, and granddaughter

left the comfortable homely house,

crossed the valley to the foot of the great hill,

and found ways up to its top,

later, as day thought about slipping into dusk,

my son, granddaughter, and I brave the bracing creek,

so that we could find ourselves literally immersed in the day,

a day in which earlier we found ourselves 

immersed in hike, climb, and view, and in each other,

Wow. . . what a day!

by Henry H. Walker

December 26, ‘18