In a moment we’ll get back 
to our regularly scheduled nonsense
but for now, let’s break for a wintry trance
as the wind cuts and swoops
across the bare skin of our faces.
Let’s face nature threatening
with a knife in her hand
and us standing there
shivering but not budging.
In a moment we can go back inside
but we ought to be able to walk and not run
when we do.  We ought to be able to say
that we’re barely connected enough
back to the days of hide and fur
to be able to stand up to something
that comes every year and never relents.
In a moment we can forget this
before the fire or the radiator
but right now let’s act like original humans
and be glad we remember how,
even for a moment.

Ate a mountain this morning.
All of it, base to peak.

I sat around fat as a dam
waiting to burst.

Lightning and fog
gathered around my head.

I was huge; if you’d been there
and tried to scale me, you’d have perished.

“I’m geographical!” I exclaimed.
“I’m on the map!”

Then someone tried to rename me.
I resisted that successfully

but damned if then I didn’t start wondering
who I was.

When and if I push this rock out of me
will I be the same person?

Can anyone take in that much of the world
and be unchanged?

All that I can say is that a mountain
presented itself, I took it in,

and now I’m staring down from a cliff
whenever I look in the mirror.