the view from leadville

(July 2022. Leadville sits right near the Continental Divide, with Mount Massive and Mount Elbert (the tallest mountain in Colorado) visible from the whole wide region. There’s lots of great camping near Twin Lakes south of Leadville. I wrote this by a reservoir down there with 360 degree mountain views. I like this poem. It’s raw and rough and real, representative of how I tend to channel poetry from beautiful places.)

the view from leadville

not the town but the nature around
of which the town
is just a blip

humans can be dreadfully small
heavy metals and the mass of their mining
(which is to say the drive for possession)
may indeed one day bury them.

how different, the town and the view
from leadville, what has been here for eons—

the ridges growing with the slowest thrust
impregnating the sky with the aim of materials
the shape of ideals as they meet resistance,
the contour between what is real and what.

the weight of man’s aspirations
drawn upward from down in leadville.

i am in sight of the spine
of turtle island the earthy brown upwards
balding of green life
slipping down like melting glaciers
towards me subalpine where the pine thrive
with the aspen below the alpenglow
and i know this reservoir surrounded by
mountains is the source of arkansas
and i know my mind flows now
from near the spinecenter of this continental story
and the glory of this vision i owe to god
myself this 360 degree liberal vista

of what i can see
(which is to say what is possible and)
if my eyesight were not so echoingly dazzled
by the imprints of all the beauty i’ve been
sweetly spoiled by in this life of licentious looking
(sights even more special than this,
this simple largeness of the turtle’s soft rocky seam,
a seeming divide only to a people who’s language
thinks negatively)
then i should drop to my knees
and give thanks to all i am not right now

or at the very least stop walking to stand still
until i am as still as the reservoir,
still enough to contour my echoing spirit to the shape
of this massive air carved by mountains,
still enough to attune my vibration
to and with the focused ringing of this vastness