The stony slope was mocking
and pitiless.
The chirping greens
and browns below
could not fathom my
lifeless, grey choice.
The high-pitched scree
erased my progress.
The frenzied beat
of my thoughts
out-of-sync with my body.
Fling a boot forward,
gasp. swear. shriek.
shift my weight
this is what I deserve
plant and push
cry. grunt. SCREAM.
swing the other leg,
fuck it all
slide back oh so close to where I started.
But not quite.
Eventually,
the ground leveled and cleared,
and quieted,
and began to descend
the other side of the mountain,
and I found
the peculiar beauty of discord
is when it stops.
At the entrance to a wood, I stood
in the silence between the songs.
********************
Distant falsettos and bass lines,
scattered drum-taps,
gather and gurgle on the wind,
unhurried,
congealing into chorus;
the rain begins its hiss-patter percussion
on the leaves overhead.
My breath escapes, is replaced; I kneel
to put the cover on my pack,
a crinkled blue forcefield,
and I walk;
a hushed football
on the mossy undergrowth
of a dampening forest.
