• .

    now to climb, steadfast, stalwart mountains.
    pending icestorms and rock avalanches.
    sky darkens as pupils squint to see through
    the burly dusk captivating, tingling, the senses.

    burning cold, and wet passing through one
    atmosphere to another. altitude calls out.
    ground sees so far away. outcroppings grow
    from the face cliff, an alien planet. hands
    grasp and clasp to whatever holds they can find.

    a memory of falling. was it mine or someone
    else's? it creeps along the edges of cerebellum
    to cortex. a dream caught in niches of electrical
    impulses and synapses. perhaps dying tonight.
    formed from ice melt, an ice queen so powerful,
    her words are lost in howling winds tonight.

    .