wilderness Stargate

We - me and i trudged from base uphill at 10,000 feet

switch backing minimizing sharp15 percent grades

increasing pair, one heavy the other light

gravity an’ thin air

lungs burning fire on the center of my chest

my sputtering heaving gasps tear

my stinging nostrils, like parchment at 11,000

upward slant grasping for air holds

against the mass of gravity’s backpack boots and body

the emerald blue sky is my anchor, my lift

in mineral king’s mountain folds

800 feet unbroken incline mellows out,

chest’s bellows less, due more horizontal stretch meandering turnpikes, dizzying thin air altitude

shrubs rolling out threshold to alpine trees

deep gorge rocky banks idyllic hike

a fatal fall’s slip of the foot and 200 feet of instant death

to silver stream jagged below

trail ends at base of taller still, magnificent mountain

covered in gold velvet rock protrusions, embedded

crossing stream ’neath our feet

small headwater runs slow

headed to box canyon past cathedral granite bowls

whose towering 12,000 feet in sunlit snowy banks

create shadow nestled at their northern base,

a waiting cradle preparing for

winter’s newborn falling snow

mosses downy, cushiony steps of green sponge

trekking ’long meandering silent serpentine creek

northeasterly invisible arrow of travel, pristine pulse

living things, alpine flora, scattered birds flitting speak

searching winter’s september scarce bounty

of seed and sleeping bugs’ prey for hungry beaks

late autumn sun, bright as summer transposed on cold

clean reality so far away

so tranquilizing from raucous noise

of technical livings’ existence,

far distant land of electron

and machinery’s magnetic fields

pulsating fix on mere existence that never sleeps

due distraction’s onslaught

most times humans transfixed unawares asleep

deeper gorge lies ahead, wild gooseberries

dried hanging for me

westward turning point, follow the slope

yields for me its sobering silence

of noise detoxification at her every turn of incline

and slight declines

creating a virtual metaphysics realm entrance

porthole, high altitude wormhole,

cybergate escape into stargate

no return, no goin’ back

to cities of industries’ dull glowing red lights

maybe i’ll fall into that dimension’s maw

maybe a sojourner of like mind will encounter

the shell of my corpse after some winter’s thaw