The Mountain
Sunday, 10. June 2007, 01:45:48
We walked the mountain this morning, and I allowed Ethan for the first time to trek with his brother and sister. At first, he wanted to walk alone until finding himself stuck in some crevice below the rock's surface. I picked him up and carried him up a large, long climb.
I looked back and gazed at beautiful sunrays behind the cloudy, windy sky. I saw oceans of house developments overtaking this magical landscape, and I only regret how easy it is to dynamite sandstone in order to make passageways of concrete and steel.
We reach the mountain or hill apex, and at its top, the quarry no longer was there. The rocks are gone, and the dirt was hard and dry with cracks like a drained river in Africa. Also, a pile of trees about fifteen feet high stood randomly like a fire waiting to be lit by the giant of these former woods.
Everything is dying is dead. Every beautiful thing is passing away and turning into a different form, and I long for a moment to hold on to these memories and wonder when I, too, will fade into the dark and crummy night.
But, I am not ready to go. Still, piles of rocks and dead trees exist on top of this mountain hill, and I can see fifteen or so miles away to downtown Tulsa, the place my father's father helped construct and the place I used to drive through on my way to an empty Arkansas River, drained by the damn, and not allowed to flow as it should--ripping hard against the terrain and creating newfound paths of life for fish, snapping turtles, and the biggest catfish in Green County.
I am not ready to go. I have too many miles, like Frost said, too many miles to trek against the tornado winds that exhaust me but keep me turning out for more.
Moon
I looked back and gazed at beautiful sunrays behind the cloudy, windy sky. I saw oceans of house developments overtaking this magical landscape, and I only regret how easy it is to dynamite sandstone in order to make passageways of concrete and steel.
We reach the mountain or hill apex, and at its top, the quarry no longer was there. The rocks are gone, and the dirt was hard and dry with cracks like a drained river in Africa. Also, a pile of trees about fifteen feet high stood randomly like a fire waiting to be lit by the giant of these former woods.
Everything is dying is dead. Every beautiful thing is passing away and turning into a different form, and I long for a moment to hold on to these memories and wonder when I, too, will fade into the dark and crummy night.
But, I am not ready to go. Still, piles of rocks and dead trees exist on top of this mountain hill, and I can see fifteen or so miles away to downtown Tulsa, the place my father's father helped construct and the place I used to drive through on my way to an empty Arkansas River, drained by the damn, and not allowed to flow as it should--ripping hard against the terrain and creating newfound paths of life for fish, snapping turtles, and the biggest catfish in Green County.
I am not ready to go. I have too many miles, like Frost said, too many miles to trek against the tornado winds that exhaust me but keep me turning out for more.
Moon
