Fragments From Floyd

To walk the same steps through four seasons; to see the same enduring ridges and clefts like the loops and curls of fingerprints, unique to these hills alone; to see that life goes on in ordained ways around and within me. This is a thing I own. This is wealth. I steal the air that fuels these transient living cells that carry me up and over and down this mountain. The trees that reclaim this tattered hillside, this ancient valley land bounded by surveyed and imaginary lines-- they do not belong to me.

This body that labors more each season to come here itself is leased, a borrowed book written in erasable ink. This I understand. Getting to the top of the ridge in summer and in winter is a form of praise of the things that endure beyond the life of a man, a dog, a white pine or slowly eroding mountains.