Ode to Mt. Philo

by Major Jackson

After avocado–colored inclines, after dawdling ascents
over fern & foliage, after long trillium gazes and careful steppings
over outcrops of rocks which if not careful could
trip to foil, after delicate trail talk of marriages and births,
dates, and quarrels squashed, the tentative pace
of the new in–law, the sure–footedness of the long–ago loved,
after stop–offs to catch breath, a swig and quaff, to take this much
in, midway up journey, this resting place to further
peaks and crests, after foothold and climb, after storm’s last
sculpture of fallen trees, You, summit of my life, philosophy
of sky, You, embezzler of breaths from big and small mouths,
so that all whisper your spread–out tabernacle, a new religion, —
You ritual burst of mountain light and sparkling lake
for which we line–up taking our turns in spawns of clicks
and screens: panorama of foothills like green coats thrown
open, clouds, if only we could reach & cup into our hands,
and below, a stitched patchwork of land: lime–pastured
like flattened squares of kale. We look. We marvel at how far
we traveled through emerald, glitter, and beam.