MOUNT RAINIER HAIKU 

                     —for James Kirkup

RAINIER SNAPSHOT

Pausing by the great—

Fast rushing Carbon River

Feeling the big rush

CARBON RIVER

Parking the pickup—

Then down thru the boulder-field

Pausing to feel it

THE RUSH

Suddenly the way—

The spaces just opened up

Like waiting for us

THE STILLNESS

Pausing there in the—

Gravel rubble-field of

Huge displaced bouders

GETTING HIGH

Taking a nice toke—

Beneath the tall gaunt

Ranges high above

GAUNT OLD CLIFFS

That’s when it happened—

The inside-out illusion

How ancient it was

THE CEDAR

Who needs to go to—

Egypt & the Nile Delta

Here by the Cedar

ANCIENT

So tres ancient—

Looking up at the mountains

One loses it all

THE END

It’s not even like—

Existential, it’s more

Like surely The End

NOTHINGNESS

What more can I say—

The sudden rush of complete

Human Nothingness?

OPENING

How to describe it—

Other than to say that it

Was just the first stage

RUSHING CEDAR

We backpacked our way—

On further past the Cedar

Mortified humans

CHENUIS FALLS

The trailhead of the—

Chenuis Falls trail is there

Embedded woodsy

EGYPTIANESQUE

The lush forest then—

Begins with Egyptianesque

Fallen fir ruins

CEDAR TEMPLES

Great megaliths of—

Fallen gone Cedar temples

Up thru steep dark paths

FIR MONUMENTS

The basalt ruins—

The uplifted mountain cliffs

 Craggy and moody

LATE EVENING

Too soon it was time—

To return back home again

Leaving mountain high

CARBONADO

Through Carbonado—

Wilkeson & then Buckley

Lovely Enumclaw

BACK HOME

Tracing our gay way—

Back through Black Diamond &

Then Maple Valley