MOUNTAIN BREAK
To hear this poem read aloud with commentary by the author,
​Over time, human activities on the watershed and severe weather events from climate change have compromised the health of the Forest [of the White Mountains] and lessened forest resiliency. -National Forest Foundation
No one fears a dragon
anymore;
no one is humbled.
Each mountain is just that: slain and used.
A rocky incubator of human pleasure.
The weather carves the mountain’s
clothes from its body.
Each step up its back burns
me away like alcohol
until just my shadow spoils the rock.
Each year, fresh snowfalls
wrinkle the peak.
A pity. This creature was once so
brutal. Each lesion
conceals diseased conifers
and the sparrows steal
my final kernel
of poison.
In this way I
ascend meaninglessly:
in this way I humiliate the stones.
If I am lucky, earthen scales will slip
through the paths like blood,
erase any chance of escape
from this dead beast.
I do not stop
moving.
As from a meadow in flame
borne from living throats,
I run.