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




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