On Barometer

Barometer Mountain, Kodiak. Suzan Hailey. January 2007. Pics4Learning.

Cycled out to Barometer from town this past sunny Saturday (~6 mi, one-way). Wind blew in a tongue I understood but could not commune in kind with. Its brusque language seemed to be set on pushing me back the way I'd come, but instead just cooled the body as it worked up a sweat pumping pedals up and over hills while cars and trucks slung their weight through the invisible force a few feet to the left.

Went as far up the gravel road towards the trailhead as I dared on thin road tires, before locking it to a tree next to one of the many abandoned and welded-shut munition storage bunkers dotting this land, relics of the military build-up for a Japanese attack that never came.

Clambered up the mountain (~2mi, one-way, 2,500' elevation gain), following a trail straight up its spine. This peak eschews switchbacks. Not a problem during the summer, but at the summit on this early April afternoon, a thick cap of snow still claimed dominion and lacking crampons and ice axe I bowed to its superior force and resigned myself to a near-ascent in exchange for my body retaining its current form and vitality. At least two memorials give testimony to others who made a different choice and paid dearly - one even constructed with an ice axe as part of its framework.

Having left my camera at home, I sat down amidst the wind and sun on the mountainside beneath soaring avians to scribble words for a friend that might depict this hearty scene:

On Barometer, near the peak.
Wind swifting, exuberantly
Embracing all aspects, from
Stream-riven flanks, by
The steepening in
Its rocky shoulders, caressing
Inspecting in a swirling tornado
Across and around
The snow-capped promontory,
Over, and over, and over again.

Eagles sail on currents,
Tipping feathertips into
The fray, tilting and whirling
In a dance with the wind,
With the mountain, with the sun.

Two juveniles, turn from
Their journeying about
The pinnacle, drift towards
The sea, dance a duo, tango
In the sky, - or tormentor 
and defender, it is hard to say,
As one swoops and grasps,
The other rolls and drops;
They play off the visual stage.

This stage lit by a sun untrammeled
With clouds; greening hills peering
From beneath cloaks of snow,
Just now being laid aside for spring;
Sound sourced by bluster,
Sprinting across sea-caps, to caps
Of snowed-in summits.

Tears smart -- wind driven
Tell-tales of the glory that
Is being, alive in this
Place and time.

Crows, eternal pranksters,
Swing by, on a wing and a 
Chuckle, hovering just above
With small talk and observations,
Dearly treasured and returned
In kind.