Mount Sneffels by Ann Christine Tabaka (LANDMARKS Series)

Mount Sneffels
by Ann Christine Tabaka

The mountain stood before me,
staring me down,
with arrogance and pride.
I would conquer him today,
or die trying.
Ice axe in hand
I began my ascent,
one chilling step at a time.
Wind was his ally
as it forced against me,
fracturing my will,
blistering my flesh.
Sun beat down with vengeance,
blinding glare obstructing view.
Fighting for my hold,
creeping inch by inch,
I rose to new heights,
I had never reached before.
Had hours, or a lifetime passed
before I reached the summit?
14,158 feet of rock,
snow, and ice lay below.
Joy overtook exhaustion.
Outstretched arms towards the sky,
I stood above the clouds.
The mountain stood below me now!
Mountain was real,
mountain is a metaphor.
I have defeated my own fears.

Published by Impspired, January 2020

PHOTO: “Mount Sneffels (Colorado)” by Don Yanedomam, used by permission.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Mount Sneffels is the highest summit of the Sneffels Range in the Rocky Mountains of North America. The prominent 14,158-foot “fourteener” is located in the Mount Sneffels Wilderness of Uncompahgre National Forest, 6.7 miles west by south of the City of Ouray in Ouray County, Colorado, United States. (Source: Wikipedia.)

PHOTO: The author (center) in 1992, when she and companions climbed Mount Sneffels (Ouray County, Colorado).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ann Christine Tabaka was nominated for the 2017 Pushcart Prize in Poetry. Winner of Spillwords Press 2020 Publication of the Year, her bio is featured in the “Who’s Who of Emerging Writers 2020,” published by Sweetycat Press. Internationally published and the recipient poetry awards from numerous publications., her work has been translated into Sequoyah-Cherokee Syllabics as well as Spanish. The author of 11 poetry books, she has recently been published in several micro-fiction anthologies and short story publications. She resides in Delaware with her husband and four cats. Visit her at annchristinetabaka.com and on her Amazon author’s page.

Summer Haiku by Matsuo Bashō

SUMMER HAIKU by Matsuo Bashō (1644-1694)

Along the mountain road

somehow it tugs at my heart —

a wild violet

Day’s Driving Done, Poem by Gary Snyder

DAY’S DRIVING DONE
by Gary Snyder

Finally floating in cool water
red sun ball sinking 
through a smoky dusty haze

rumble of bigrigs,
constant buzz of cars on the 5;
at the pool of Motel 6
in Buttonwillow,
south end of the giant valley,
ghost of ancient Lake Tulare

sunset      splash.

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“Day’s Driving Done” appears in DANGER ON PEAKS, poems by Gary Snyder (Shoemaker Hoard Publishing, 2004). In the photo above, Gary Snyder reads from the collection.

Here’s the book description from Amazon.com:

As a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, bioregional activist, Zen Buddhist, and reluctant counterculture guru, Gary Snyder has been a major artistic force in America for over five decades, extending far beyond the Beat poems that first brought his work into the public eye.

Danger on Peaks begins with poems about Snyder’s first ascent of Mount St. Helens in 1945 and his learning that atomic bombs had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the morning of his descent. Containing work in a surprising variety of styles, creating an arc-shaped trail from these earliest climbs to what the poet calls poems “of intimate, immediate life, gossip and insight,” Danger on Peaks is Snyder’s most personal work ever.

Born on May 8 1930, Gary Snyder turns 83 today — and we’d like to wish this superb poet a very happy birthday.