The distant hills

Across the many miles of dusty road we finally arrived at the top, at 3886' of Hatcher's Pass. Still,even here,the hills hemmed us in, inside this gap between the hills.But from this vantage point, far down the valley we saw the overlapping lines of hill, where the waters flowed downward to combine with the main river,gathering force in the hollows at the bottom. And we looked upwards and saw the edge of things. And there the sun and clouds hovered, casting onto the jagged rocks and broken slope small shadow shapes. Then appeared in the the changing light the zig-zag lines of trails hammered out from shale hills, revealing the way up to the tops. Too many people we thought had been here, had dug the hills, and emptied them. tA thousand trips has pounded out flatness into hills and left scars on their brows.

So I said to her that I would be back shortly. I climbed the opposite side instead, one filled with plants and flowers.It was steep here too, but not beaten down. At first the steps were soft, but the higher I climbed the loose remains reappeared. I gripped the hill until I was near the top, among the jagged rocks, along the rust-colored ridge where the snow had lain so deep in May. I had made my own path a pathless way, while my eyes gazed into another place deep within the lower sky, among the clouds that hovered there, in distant colors of shade. From here my view was clear, the air was pure with thought--this moment of reaching the top.