Chimney Rock, November 1998
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On the edge of Chimney Rock,
I watch the mountains jut their hard edges into sharp focus,
then fade into plum-colored mounds,
each tucked tightly against the next.
My feet dangle over Red River Gorge,
strain to touch the treetops smeared across each mountain.
Their spindly branches give the surface
a fuzzy glow from this distance.
Beside me a pine tree grows, its roots snaked over rock.
Thick, intestine-like tenticles hug tightly
to the mountain,
plunge into the dirt just above the stone as
serpentine offspring thread their way underground, form a system of veins and capillaries
which runs throughout this summit.
If I sat here long enough, perhaps the roots would overtake me as well,
permeate my skin, flood my body with water and terra,
punch through skin.
Tree branches bend easily for the wind
which swoops up from the gorge below,
hitting me with its hollow sound
as if surprised by me, suddenly in its path.
It would like to sweep me over the edge;
it knows that I do not belong here.
The cold of million year old earth has seeped through denim,
and the wind blowing from some hollow below
is restless for my space.
The path going back was once solid asphalt;
its porous surface provides the foothold
that the rain-smoothed ground did not.
Now, the earth pulls away from the asphalt trail,
repelled by the foreignness of it,
leaving deep fissures on either side of the footway
as I walk to my truck and camp below,
somewhere between the
wind and the water.