1. |
Fifty Fourteeners
04:28
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Tom stood upon the ridge on an august 10th
and thought about his baby's frozen hands,
and how although he'd lived, he'd never climb a rope
or touch the face of a lover again.
In the whitewatered wild
he fell into a crevasse and somehow stayed alive.
From the glacier’s heart of white,
through a jagged slit of light, cloud shapes of horses he would ride.
When that guy played the ridge like an illegal game,
his knees over the wire.
We all wanted to be him until the moment he slipped
and scattered broken bones amongst the skree.
From the knifelike mangled peak
Tom saw his clothing scattered far beneath-
an unretrievable mess of gear and bones
washing down into the watershed,
turning into something green.
From the glacier's heart of white,
through a jagged slit of light, cloud shapes of horses he would ride.
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2. |
Government Lakes
04:17
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Walk down main street in the silver rain.
Cars slide by on rainbows of spilt oil.
Oceans of umbrellas in a race
tumble past like gumballs on their way out of a machine.
O, how I've stepped on backs to climb a broken ladder
and how I was too breathless to enjoy the view.
The view from my new condo is so great!
Staring out over the government lakes.
Days turn into weeks and weeks to things
all stretched out on the calendar on my desk.
O, how I've spent those things in search of something meaningful
only to find my hands were in the wrongest place.
This shattered rung,
these battered backs,
ambitious people clawing past.
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3. |
Outside
04:17
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Waking up on a sunday morning,
snow covering the cactus fields,
I used to go out with Andres and go sledding.
They tell me these days I'm too old for that.
I've got to go to work instead.
But its so beautiful outside.
It rain's almost every afternoon in these mountains
and if you're around at just the right time,
you'll smell the lavender and hear the rattlesnakes,
pick up a horny toad and touch its soft underside.
Outside.
... You'll be tiny like a cricket singing under an old wooden porch.
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4. |
Nepal, 1905
04:09
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Crowley on a moonlit ledge
at the highest camp, drawing a pistol on a friend.
By some magic trick, he must know
The mountain's intent: to crush our bones under massive sheets of ice,
So he stays out of the cold,
Where presently,
From the broken face above comes a thunderous boom
As under glacial robes the mountain seems to move,
Writhing itself free from our ropes, from which we now
dangle uselessly in the black, curling sky.
How does the wind make sails on the horizon bow?
While somewhere else its fall and a gust of leaves are given back to
the base of the trees,
And the rope comes taught and drags me into a sea of white,
And in that sea I swim for life?
Old mountainside,
Can you feel me clinging to you?
What of the life I lead beneath?
Down amongst the tiny trees and buildings?
Never you return me to the world of things.
Crowley having nightmares of tumbling from the face
Rattling his body like the bars of a cage.
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5. |
Sheet Stealer!
05:25
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These weeds fed into us
And we’ll feed into them someday.
And all of our daughters will feel this same way:
Sad to take up this space.
Is it the way that you pick things up with your hands
and put them back down,
Or the way that you've watered the plants on our sill,
like rain hits the ground?
And I can't believe you were once a stranger to me.
It took a death in the mountains for me to notice you.
Say you'll come back and steal all the sheets like you used to,
because I can't keep up this meandering around.
And I can't believe you'd become a stranger to me.
It took a death in the mountains for me to know you.
All signs point to a tumor!
All signs point into a future
with you and me sitting on a rain cloud
batting planes around
and watching them hit the ground!
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6. |
Weathering
03:09
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On the great south col I fell asleep for a very long time.
I listened to the tents flapping in the wind.
Though the world was white and fading into blue I had the most beautiful dreams:
floating on the sea, a cup of yellow tea and I was warm and glimmering.
When you let it go its actually quite nice,
the shivering subsides and everything feels fine.
You will meet your wife and kids so you can say goodbye
to everything you knew.
(You'll see it all renewed).
All that they found was an abandoned axe and a stack of tanks that were empty.
And he radioed down, said he was on his way, but he didn't have the strength
to move an inch.
When you let it go its actually quite nice,
the shivering subsides and everything feels fine.
You will meet your wife and kids so you can say goodbye
to everything you knew.
You'll see it all renewed. You'll see it all.
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7. |
Moose Collision
04:47
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Through Montana on my motorbike I was actually alone,
nothing with me but my climbing boots, a sixer and a knife.
I couldn't tell you if I saw the moose stepping out into the road that night,
if his eyes looked like two fireflies, or reflectors on an ugly sign.
But when I opened my eyes again it had been removed;
an ancient, angry antler from this punctured lung.
It had narrowly missed a beating heart and an electric spinal cord.
Awake some nights, I think about the moose stepping out onto the yellow line,
and if he saw a bright white headlight or if it looked just like the moon
moving in towards him for the first time in a long life of solitude.
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8. |
Dead Trees
03:26
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Here in this ravine
is where I saw the trees
cackling at me.
I turned to look for bears
but there were none there.
And then I saw one fall
into the soft earth.
They were lying on the ground,
like babies in their cribs,
decaying into me.
Their trunks were rotting, blue,
collapsing in the rain.
The summit in the mist
threatened like a blade.
But when I was finally there
all there was was air
and a view of the moon
peering through folds of grey,
singing like a bird in space.
Peering through folds of grey,
singing like a bird in space.
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9. |
Evidence
05:33
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beyond these mapped-in routes gravel labyrinths extend
everything unfolds before your worn souls.
stray hills breathe fog into a bottomless bowl of stars
overarching a lost house that never was built.
I have heard the children sing sweetly in blind fields,
seen the man whose hanging still swings from the tired trees,
the farm's dogs all bark when the screen door slams
but the windmill is fixed in a knowing stare.
He landed in an airplane in the green pasture and the rain
let him sleep inside that night, he left a miracle behind.
Is he nearby standing in the doorway?
Is he in the dirty air, is he still inside me?
Some nights there is only emptiness.
Other nights there are tiny bits of evidence.
He left his white wings behind the backyard toolshed.
And the corn grew like weeds wherever he'd wept.
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10. |
Nanda Devi
05:41
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When you were born your eyes were closed
And you were indistinguishable from the other babies.
We argued over names
And how could I've known you were fated to lie down
on Nanda Devi?
When you were old enough I began to teach you
Which greenery you could eat to survive alone out
In the wilderness, like me. The earth is the grandest
Of living things, and with it we are linked inextricably.
Nanda Devi.
No one understood why I didn't feel at fault
But I'd only introduced you to the glory of mountaintops.
When the avalanche swept me off the face of a friend
With someone's little kids we were like specks of dust
In nature's beautiful broom,
Nanda Devi,
rejoining the river.
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11. |
Seven Summits
04:30
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Cut into our tents and take from our caches:
fuel and oxygen, dexamethasone.
And we'll arrange a rescue at 20,000 feet.
A helicopter pilot will defy the law of gravity.
Do this for your wife, do this for your kids.
Kiss your hands goodbye and thank your god that you're alive.
Why were you so obsessed with this?
Now you're free to give back all the time you wasted
out on the seven summits.
Stumbling through a brand new wilderness:
the normal lives that most of us survive.
And we'll arrange a rescue at 27 feet.
We're the family you never knew
and we will nurse your wounds.
Do this for your wife, do this for your kids.
Kiss your hands goodbye and thank your god that you're alive.
Why were you so obsessed with this?
Now you're free to give back all the time you wasted
out on the seven summits.
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