the way opens, and so do we

 the elders way

a stream makes a path down a mountain,

and we call it a valley,

a valley which carves its way around boulders and over bedrock,

showing us that a way can open

for our feet and thus for our soul,

when the mountains steepens on one side,

the trail crosses to the other,

near the stream at times,

climbing high above it at other times,

all to make the footsteps more a hike than a climb,

after the Ice retreated some 10,000 years ago,

the first peoples around here must have needed 

a way to get over the mountains,

so they took what rock and water made together

and created a path to follow the stream’s hollowing chisel,

plant and bush and tree climbed the mountain, too,

in their own patient way,

their roots hold the hardwon soil

and help the trail hold to the way,

for centuries, for millennia, humans have found their way

up and down the mountain along this path,

and we glory in the glory that must have enveloped them,

and still envelopes us,

our goal today a high waterfall fanning into a clear cold pool,

the trail drawn here to be as close to it as possible,

for those first sojourners up this mountain

must have felt the power of this particular spot,

the trail earlier pulled away from other gorgeous views

as water cascaded invitingly down bedrock,

here, though, the power of place demanded to be easily seen,

we scramble down the short slope to the water

and immerse ourselves in its shocking embrace,

not much more than a mile from the ridge line,

this waterfall and pool the highest above the sea we know of around here,

we ready ourselves to go back down the hollowed valley to our car,

my wife remembers Harvey Broome, 

who wrote that he never likes to leave the top of a mountain,

she laments: “I never like to leave such a waterfall!”

how fitting that 10,000 years ago, or so,

others humans likely stood here and thought the same.

by Henry H. Walker

July 13, ‘21