The mountains, The mountains

The scary Climb 40 x 30 cm mixed media on paper

MOUNTAIN LOVE

What can you say about mountains?

That you can’t fit them into a phone? But, look, you can.

When I’m on top of one of

them I’m a little high because I’m short

of oxygen after the climb and take huge

gulps of air to compensate, a pulmonary phenomenon  

Brad Pitt coolly elucidates in “Fight Club.”  

I’m inspirationally

high…sometimes. Other times I’m somewhat numb, a little

detached, wondering what kind of beer I’ll have with

my schnitzel when we’re gemütlich and sleepy in town. And

I’m wondering but it’s no wonder they put cheese on everything

in the Gasthäuser; emmentaler, greyerzer; bells clanking

lethargically when the cows lick their muddy hides, their

tongues, great pink saliva laced slabs, reaching out, touching you,

like an old commercial for long distance phone calls.

Some of the higher peaks here look like

they’ve been in a fight, are gorgeously deformed.

Others have grass growing on steeply slanting faces, softening,

but still irredeemably aloof. They will not be walked upon.

Music to accompany these writhing piles of rock shouldn’t be Wagner

or Strauss. I would prefer the Miles Davis of “Kind of Blue”

or something tense but quiet by Charles Mingus. Water breathing   

out cold air as it falls; music so cool it almost can’t be bothered.