high on the mountain
the trip slips along the upthrust mountain
as if it is a snake finding a way forward,
blending the imperative to find a way
with what the underlying stone allows,
the prey is “up” so we climb with the ridge,
drop down a bit when it does,
then resume the pull toward the top,
we clamber over bedrock of sandstone
that feet and time and relentless rains
have left higher than we’d like
and necessitated trail crews to blast
and figure steps up and over, or a work-around
to the side where slope and forest allow such a way,
at ridge-top siltstone strata,
laid down horizontal in an ancient sea,
have been contorted by ancient mountain-building
so that the layers of their presentation now lie vertical,
their verticality allows the mountain to flake off its substance,
and a steep drop-off maintains itself,
at our goal, the Jump Off, the land has fallen away,
disappeared and become air,
there heath hugs precipitous cliff,
and rhododendron flowers full and red to greet us,
the valley below a great bowl with steep sides,
where verdant forest holds as best it can
against the loss that time can beat at it,
and cradles plant and animal who are not disturbed
by the snakes of our trails,
just one abandoned manway a few people
use to still find a way to slip along the stream below
and climb up to Dry Sluice Gap and the A.T. at the rim,
we can’t, and don’t, stay there along,
we take pictures with camera and heart,
and then work our way back
from this outrageous, provocative view,
on our way up and back down,
winter wrens fill the worshipful silence
with their plaintive, melancholy trilling,
as if they whistle a lament
for how loss underlies the joy of their moments,
we only hear winter wrens up high in the Smokies,
and it is all we can do to not give in to the siren of their song,
we need to hear and remember the beauty of their lament,
and sing as best we can with our own lives,
the way the winter wrens sing with theirs.
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