Sway into the abstract, sometimes.
Due to an infatuation with the past, a pocket knife sits, clasped snuggly in my right pocket, securely next to my black rolling ball pen.
In Colorado, in the winter, you didn’t feel like a man unless you had the ability to cut through a block of cheese, spread peanut butter on the bagel, or cut the rope, on the spot. A camping trip simply was not a camping trip without a knife, or a pen.
The daily climbs, the beautiful peaks incapable of capture, due to batteries too cold from not remembering to store them near your groin while you slept.
While snow camping, it’s amazing what you end up putting down your pants. And your pen, was not one of those things. You would remove the journal from the brain of your bag and document what the camera could not. A picture never justifies the movement, you know that. And sitting with that chocolate bar which was given as a treat, as an award for reaching the summit calms my nerves just long enough to sketch out a poem. One that says, “Here I am, on top of beauty, and I owe it to every one of you. My friends, my family, my teachers, my lovers.”