MOUNTAIN PRACTICE

HIGH CAMP AFTER LIGHT COLLECTING

            How will you use up 30,000 days?

                        Dharma pod cast

Walking up to the woman

Cashier,  I say, paying for coffee,

Maybe someone down the road a ways

will play Purple Haze? Maybe,

she says, savvy. Enchiladas

and Hanshan at High Camp,

Bosque Pear, instant coffee in mug

from Calgary, Alberta, Canada

calling mosquitoes Alberta's

official bird. The mountain

of tombs is the island of immortals

Hanshan says, sitting with me.

We smile and Hanshan

in the imagined ink portrait,

bows as I depart. I ski

under the rope where I peek

into McCall Basin and Goat Rocks.

I come upon two men on skis

and we surprise each other

breaking silence as skis squeak

on dry powder snow. Welcome,

they say. Hogback and snow-

chaste meadow below.

A solitary's zendo, McCall

Basin. We exchange wonders,

mountain stories. He wants to hike

the Crest Trail through Washington.

I'm 48, he says, still able. It's my son's

birthday, I say, he's 48 today.

I put him on skis when he was three.

My oldest skiing partner. A mountain

practitioner in geological time.

Jim Bodeen

High Camp Lodge/Goat Rocks Wilderness

27 February 2019--6 March 2019