Dust Shards

Swirling, whirling, worlding snow
Shimmering, soft white into half lit fog
Walking up my mountain
From home to peak
How many lives have I made this journey?
Now, frosted Aspen branches
Delicate, curling intricately
Telling their gnarly story silently
Thriving, striving, intertwining
Barely visible in blazing sun
But now, icy frost gives them voice
Burgeoning, budding a snowy history
Thinking, reflecting, working up this hill
Active, passive
Relationships, meaning, beauty, grammar, structure, analysis
Intertwined in different temporalities
With these branches, this snow, my mountain
We kiss each other as our distances
We silently mingle in ways not present
Undercurrents never seen
But shown up from time to time as history, as frost
Soon to melt and return us to our anonymity
This road, I labor to the top
Winding as the Aspen branches
Now, viewing brilliant white fields
Made by ravaging, relentless fires
Another history shown by the dark, burnt tree trunks
Set against the white snow and half lit fog
I reach my peak
This place where the earth ends and the sky begins
I kiss eternity with my frosted beard
I stand erect towards my end, my mortality, my horizon
I stare into an abyss of half lit fog blowing snow 
Not seeing past this eerie gray curtain
But knowing the expansive precipice, 
the mountainous splendor that awaits another day
I marvel at my swirling, whirling, worlding, shimmering, glimmering
Presence
And what remains below, underneath, silent
But giving birth to the stars and the earth
This my place under the sky, over the earth and intertwined with all
This my mountain between peak and home is my soul.