The higher I walk in the mountains, the thinner the air, the stronger the sun, the colder the wind, the sharper the stone. All the thinness, strength, coldness and sharpness rub up against me like a blade on a grindstone and I’m sure my surface wears away until I am a strolling core, a vaporous center, a balanced twig teetering on the fork of my thin legs — a wispy soul-shaped thing they call the spirit. A slim, wavering sunbeam on rickety grasses and green waters; as eternal and finite as any living thing.
I’m a gold gleaner.
I want to scoop the world up in two hands and press it to the smooth slopes of my face. Wash my eyes and cheeks in the purity of chroma before I step forth into a religious rite. This land is my cloak. I wear the wind draped over narrow shoulders and the wildflower bones are a belt about my waist.
This is a clean place. I want to be clean, too. Rubbed free of my rust and brokenness so as to meet with God in a high place in my most natural state.
I reach out and run my fingertips along the mustard yellow feathers of the tamarack; the trees are fledging out of their own skin, made jumpy by their own wild displays of color. Each leaf that drops, each needle turning to duff on the forest floor rings like a bell on impact. The forest is a choir. I know the words to the song by heart. I sing along. My voice bears wings, one thousand wings, and on each wing tip, a steady flame.
Down on the water I catch fish, tease them with the long loops of my line, flick tiny bugs at them until they bite. I bring them to my cold, chapped hands, carefully slip hooks from their lips and marvel at the way their wet skin reflects sky, stone, tree and my own bright eyes, drunk on seeing deeply in this empty space.