my commute in a national park

I moved the mountain today and yesterday and the day before that. 
I move it every day I walk back from work and
It breathes with me.
The others don’t see it, I’ve asked and they can’t see it
But I can
Watch it move forward and back, get larger and smaller
And live. it is alive within me. 
The mountain exists.

adventure is all in the mind

I enter
And take aim to conquer the massive snow bank
The plow has so nicely left to my disposal.

I must cross the winter plain and climb the steep precipice to obtain my goal!
I do.

I take note of the valley road
In front of me
I sit patient, cat-like, and relaxed as the sun’s rays warm my exterior

And then I fall.
Backwards,
Into the cold.

I lie and follow my wandering mind as it remembers
All the ways I used to play
In The Middle.

I’m Up.
Step,
        Through
                Crunch.
Through
Never touching the ground
I make my way to the top of The Hill
My old chair
        Nestled in the arms of a sugar maple
We used to fight about who could sit where.
We broke it-
In a couple different ways and it now seems as unchanged as it was when we last
Sat upon its skinny limbs-


We killed the tree
That was sideways
        It’s likeness to a bouncing chair did it in.
And the four
        Oaks that shared the same trunk
Only Three now
The termites secretly gutted the fourth
It fell, hit the street and by then it had already died.

Jump, fall, roll.

Before the town started mowing:
There was a bramble of wild flowers- pink.
Near the bush that houses the rabbits or woodchucks
(depending on the year).
They eat-
Our garden.

But they reside to the left of the hill which we sled down.
Over the snow bank
Into the street if
We didn’t stop ourselves out of fear.

There is also a path down The Hill and through the woods,
Past the rooms and a holey tree where my brothers used to pee

Down to the house I used to keep
Whose door is now shut and whose stomach is full of

Leaves,

from the tree where I used to collect
My souvenirs from a ride on the tire swing.
Now
There are only the rusted and torn wires-
Evidence of the Great Swing which once lived.

Onto the path that led me in
I take a detour.
Waist high in snow, I pull myself out and slide back into my adult world
Knowing I never really leave The Middle behind.