Climbing Mountains
by N.E. Nelson
2.8.08
 
Who would have ever thought
it would be one of those little
bloodsucking tics that would almost knock the life out of me,
remember the old me
 
she is here in a box in the closet in pictures of parties,
fishing for cats until three a.m., sleeping by the campfire
counting stars
 
in Paris passing under the Arc De Triumph,
gazing upon the Mona Lisa in the Louvre,
the Queen's bedchambers at Versailles,
climbing hundreds of steps to the top of Notre Dame,
riding the world's fastest train to the 
Spanish-French border, following cobblestone streets in an ancient village to the Seine River, 
a tea party with French women 
not knowing a word they speak,
 
here she is looking for moose in the boundary waters,
discovering the woods-flowers, smelling the pines,
she is there fishing the Great Lake catching her limit of trout,
riding in a rickety-old plane looking down on Eagle Mountain
later climbing to its top looking-out over a huge expanse of land and water,
 
this one on the edge of the Cascade Mountains looking down forever,
riding the dangerous switchbacks, seeing a ghost of  
Mount St. Helens through thick fog, narrowly escaping hitting a huge elk 
 
another she is sunburned as a lobster in Mexico 
bartering and exchanging money not knowing a word of Spanish, watching a bullfight, swims in the ocean for the first time, lets the strong tide bowl her over
and in Canada bathing in cold lake water, catching her first limit of walleye, 
here she is dressed all in wool carrying her 20 gauge
putting a bead on her first grouse.
 
Seems like the woman in the pictures is no more.
But she is still there! And climbs a new mountain each morning.