Legs like waterfowl, I scramble, almost fly the first steep rise on the path from scrub oak into evergreens, their fallen needles, fallen trunks: initiation into forest leaning against itself, losing itself, branch by branch — a mountain holding itself together with pine sap 

scent lifting my 10-year-old wings like aspen leaves — flutter, tremble, almost fly toward groves of white bark bruised black with love letters weeping resin memory where ferns wild into fields where nettles sting

or snow slides if spring comes late: trees bend low, praying for a mountain holding itself together with aspen roots and footprints: the almost path: rocks too hard to climb would turn me back if not for that blue sky, the almost-there, these wings, the sound of water.