Crooked Creek

Sunny day, the little old school bus bumps up the map, as it turns from paved road to dirt road, from hillside to steep mountain and if it can't make this turn it's over. It's too late to turn around, you've committed to this insanity, in the wilderness no one can hear you die, but when you reach that summit and all the world stretches out around you and not a soul in sight how quiet the voices in your head. I make endless cups of coffee, I sit on an old log and stare at snow-capped mountains and the valley below, listen to the sounds of nothing, fall asleep in a sun-drenched cot with the emergency exit hatch open, beat poetry falling from my fingers as I do. I came up this mountain, I write to myself, and I don't know why. I think perhaps I have to sit here until I do. Flip through pages of Kerouacian rambles, find my own scribbled handwriting nodding in agreement, years of knowing the wisdom of the dharma, years of understanding the Word and the Road and the Truth how they meld; I drove down the mountain eventually, terrifying death trap in first gear and all the baubles within shaking loose from their holds, but the coffee cups remained firm, the lucky penny in the cup holder, the music in my ears and the breath in my lungs. Sometimes we don't know what we're looking for but isn't that just the thing? The miracle is we realize what it is once we find it.

Keep your eyes open
The secret is here, somewhere.