Be strong. Be steady. Be alert. In body, mind, and spirit.

Embody the mountain. Dorr Mountain. Acadia.

Kurt Diederich’s Climb, elder among trails,

shaped with the Park’s founding –

a series of steps and stairs cut from the mountain itself,

connected by packed earth trails

that track those slopes and edges.

The strength of purpose,

the steadiness of planning

required to create such possibility;

the alertness necessary to climb those stairs…

when I want only to look at everything…

everything…

from each angle and every curve, ascending, descending…

trees, ferns, moss, and smooth blush-shouldered stones;

each creature that creeps, leaps, flits, soars;

the great, vast, all-embracing sea-blue sky;

when I want only to inhale everything…

everything…

the clean damp smell of earth and leaf and pine

through every sense and pore.

All surrounding – strength, steadiness, alertness;

this great protruding hip of enduring earth.

A fragment, I move through its peripheries,

through its unquestionable midst…

a flawed splinter of purpose.

And yet, and yet…

here, I am fearless…here I forget…

that the world always (always) seems

bigger, stronger, louder, crueler…

here, I forget the shouts and anger that strips away

convictions, small and large, until I doubt…

Here, I am fearless; here, I don’t hide…

My face mirrors light.

Be strong. Be steady. Be alert. In body, mind, and spirit.

Hold on to that mountain.

 

 

— C.Birde, 10/10