FREERIDING

We wait.
We wait for snow.
And when it comes, with skis upon our backs,
We venture unto storm-forged heights
In search of virgin tracks.

Laboured frosted breath upon
Laboured frosted breath,
We climb toward the line we seek
Into the thinning air,
Beneath that soaring, un-trespassed peak.

Stumbling step upon stumbling step
Over crumbling rock and treacherous ice.
Excelsior! Still higher we must go.
Toward nature’s perfection:
Unblemished snow.

And then. Metamorphosis.
Ungainly tread in unyielding boots transforms,
As if unto feathered flight,
By the composite lengths beneath our feet.
And sinews, furloughed through the summer heat, ignite.

No longer mortal
But some other creature of higher grace
Who fears not life nor death
Nor any of a thousand cares that humankind must face.

This treasured, hallowed mountain place
Is briefly ours. Fleeting Deities,
We dance in Mother Nature’s soft embrace,
Down, down through the gelid gradients of eternity.

Too soon, with memories seared in aching limbs,
We must reluctantly surrender
To the burden of gravity and the toils of ordinary folk.
Until the following storm clouds gather.

And so we wait.
We wait for snow.