You haven't lived
until you've driven
ill-advised through
dusk-prepared Cascades
just after the first snowfall.
Therefore, we paused
even as we moved at speeds
only common to mankind
for the last half century.
Restart the track. Raise volume.
Restart contemplations. Raise eyes.
The winter-dusted hills here are haunted
with hints of threat.
These bastions,
these behemoth boneyards
of some corrupted past:
they taunt the very thought
that we could ever last
beyond today.
The next turn brings new vistas,
or ice patches, or pain.
It takes no great metaphor to gain
knowledge of our frailty;
only great attention
to ensure that it remain.
As songs - written and recorded by someone else -
the stereos now recite
attempt to tune their tones to this time-torn terrain,
the razor-peaks pierce our souls with mixed scents
of our imperfections
and their pine.
I must ask again:
Between the crest-settled stars
and the divine,
can you identify the line?
The mountains demand their poetry of us;
the rocks make men cry out on their behalf:
"Enter!
Here is no boundary
no border
no barrier to heaven
lest you misperceive it.
Here is summary of bounty,
but you disbelieve it.
There is no distraction, no matter how insipid,
you cannot be redeemed from.
Hell hath no fury
you cannot overcome."