When things get too scrappy around here I like to divert. Art can take the spirit to higher places — both in a physical and mystical sense. While digging around yesterday I found Jason Hummel’s (AKA Cascade Poet) poetry website. This poem by Jason took me on a direct path out of the office to the top of a mountain. Check it out.
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An Alpine State of Mind
by Cascade Poet
Put me in cold air in high places
Wrap me in fog mixed with alien faces
Pour me into swamp
Chilled
Shiver these alp trees that huddle
From brush of wind
That drinks
Such moisture filling needles that
Drip
Drip
Drip
onto grass whose green sprouts
spring from their seeds
and bring to life
the meadow
of colors that cloud the alpine slopes
with rainbows of life
whose flowers slumber all year
for the day the sun shines
and warms the rocks like bones
and awakens
the
spring
in this place
so warm with life
shivering in the cold
(Published here by permission)
WildSnow.com publisher emeritus and founder Lou (Louis Dawson) has a 50+ years career in climbing, backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering. He was the first person in history to ski down all 54 Colorado 14,000-foot peaks, has authored numerous books about about backcountry skiing, and has skied from the summit of Denali in Alaska, North America’s highest mountain.