Thoughtless

The first time I hiked a mountain in the land of the precipitous Whites, I was alone and quaked in fear.

Half-way up the trail, I came to a fantastic ash tree, its lustrous bark imprinted with the claws of a bear.

After that, all experience—house-like boulders, talking streams, vistas glimpsed through virgin trees—surrendered into one.

Finally at the open summit, almost out of breath, I looked out upon a faultless view of endless and empty peaks.

The silence was perfectly contemplative... until another hiker, beer in one hand, cigarette in the other, asked me what I thought.


~Son Rivers 2009