High

Everybody gets high

in the mountains.

In the mountains

everybody's high.

Sea level sours your soul.

Even the cracks in the valleys

rise higher than thee,

Then the night

whom brings you face to face

with the stars,

your companions while you sleep--

a billion dreams.

...and where's the street light?

the stop light?

the porch light?

--counterfeit drugs

that are death to the soul on the summit.

Stagnant air down there

that's not fit for swimming,

lo, the breeze in the mountain pass

that flows streamlike

tossing trout covered leaves

between nestled rocks,

solid rocks,

old rocks--

flows high and wild,

untamed air exploding in your lungs,

drowning your ability to ever say goodbye,

to ever leave--

a return to flat reality,

where dogs are chained

and bikes are too.

You could walk forever,

for eternity there,

and get no closer to eternal heaven--

to the heavens,

scratched by tips of granite

where wildflowers dance

in multicolored dances of hallucination

above the treeline,

tripping in a landscape of grey

or green

or purple.

Can you feel the sun,

heaped there on your naked shoulder,

wrapped in the wind,

blown in fresh from the peaks,

into your soul,

your veins,

leaving track marks on your mind,

leaving sea level

and this

and that

and...

so very far behind.

As you rise upward

one meadow to the next,

your laced boots,

long now addicted to the climbing trail,

have discovered nothing new in time--

Everybody gets high

in the mountains.

In the mountains

everybody's high.

2004

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