dead heart in my hands

    my chest is an open wound—

                                         new painless rhythm

Before I knew what a false summit was, I tugged on hiking boots with careful lacings and folded into my tiny red Chevette. Big boots and small pedals, I jockeyed for position as I swerved up the canyon and into the dirt lot flanked by brown-painted forest service parking bumpers. 

Canteen jostled roughly in with a map and a banana, my arms threaded into my daypack, I tucked thumbs behind straps and began my ascent to look from ridge to ridge across a new valley. 

I had been schooling in a place of gentler climbs for the long year before. Now huffing, my shortened breaths turned into opportunities to take in surroundings, leaning, just a bit, on a gathered Aspen limb. I could do this. I would do this. My resolve hardened with the lactic acidity of calves bleating their displeasure. 

My goal was now surprisingly close, until it wasn’t. When had I enrolled in this workshop titled Basic Line-of-Sight, this mountain my chuckling professor? I began to learn this subject in the most practical of ways, nearsighted summit after nearsighted summit. 

the dog doubles back

peeking around the corner,

beckoning me

Too frustrated to see a blessing of fir-topped encouragement and gradual progress, I stomped forward after purchasing each brief rest. In time, either will or pride won the day. With a final butt scootch, I settled on a rocky table to watch the sun throw shadows as it began to edge below the far ridge. 

I slipped a new penny into a crack in my rock pew to commemorate my graduation. Then, with a strained groin, I began to limp home in hurried twilight. 

           You snuck up again

            with more unexpected gifts—

                                       strange inner stillness