She is the first mountain
I ever climbed.
8 years old,
I think I can,
one foot in front of the other,
because I didn’t want to quit
and thought I heard
the songs of fairies
hidden in her gardens
and went in chase.

Today,
magenta mixed with
mahogany erase-
muddy treks
and white flecks
and tundra collects
and hides 10,000 Who’s
in its specks-
I almost hear their
joyous noise
over the thunks of my
earth slick steps.

This mountain,
she hides
all her mysteries
in her wrinkles
and her lines,
blink-
and you will miss them,
her portals to the divine.

Things unseen,
yet still alive,
worlds within worlds
on her face reside,
and just as I did
way back when,
I go in chase of
the invisible,
mystical,
unfathomable,
foreseeable-
(if you have the eyes)

Her magic waits in
the in-betweens,
earth’s kaleidoscope
of rhymes.