ode to the appalachian mountains

you roll you appalachian mountains. you roll, steady, calm, mystically in misty eyed remembrance over these palms. appalachian mountain memories hardening under my skin erupt as calluses at the base of my well worn fingers. how many times did i brush across new life? how deep did i dig under the soil of my own mysterious existence? how far did i extend into the suns of other universes held gently, timidly in the solar plexus of strangers? my hands hang loose bowed with the weight of my new self, a self stretched over a blue ridge landscape, a self jutting out in open plain excitement, a self light and a heart roaming childishly in the lilting chords of a sweet tea imbibed harmonica solo. what an Odyssey.

you lope in the forefront of my mind like lazy ponies in summertime, you appalachian mountains. the sky dances above stubby pines and long lines of grass lands. i watch my shadow sail in a reflected sky birthed by a mother of muddy water, breaking me apart and setting out silt struck rays of light from my eyes. my pack is heavy, perhaps heavier than it should be and my knee throbs, but for this sight i'd walk myself into the ground, you appalachian mountains, i'd walk myself into the ground, just to keep tracking along the gentle curves of your smokey silhouettes.

atop a ridge the clouds tell stories like grandfather clocks, ticking away in the wind and rocking me to sleep with the whispers of why i am here and why you are here
and why this,
and why that,
peace breathe peace breathe peace breathe

on and on these clouds whisper, cooing their song down into the valleys and around the crowns of these appalachian mountains.

during the day we re-set the bones of these mountains, pull rocks from their slumber and place them in our paths so we might climb these mountains like nerves along a spine. you sweat you appalachian mountains all over my body leaving me soiled. i feel cleansed in a way that only the harmonious understand. i don't quite get it, but i'm beginning to understand. i am slow and you appalachian mountains are kind.

i close my eyes and see the sunsets of appalachian mountains. the wind crashes continuously against the ridge. i hug my knees, i'm in a perpetual state of re-birth. every thought conceived, revealed, then whisked away, perpetual state of newness, perpetual state of now. i feel the stubbornness being knocked out of me, the sense of control lifted from my heavy brow. i am simply a life at the edge of a perfectly designed rock outcropping, watching the world turn. you roll, you appalachian mountains and i think of everything and nothing. you pose, you appalachian mountains like waves caught in a freeze frame and i am everything and nothing. i am forever changed because of you appalachian mountains.