The Marble Mountains

The sun-baked manzanita smelled of heavy, swirled honey along the trailside.

Looking south, the Wooley Creek Watershed resembled the rumbling, ruffled flanks of an enormous, pine-green grizzly bear.

Willy and I laid down on our backs in a field of columbine, lupine, corn lily and paintbrush and watched the hummingbirds squirt around in their frenzy of hunger, aggression and courtship.

If I lived as fully as I would like, than surely each time I look over and see my brother in our youth I should crumble to the ground in a fit of joy, open another bottle of Scotch, and toast that our lives may be spared!

That night at Burney Lake we all got stoned as a cobbled street and built pyramids of pinecones, set them on fire, and sailed them into the lake.

Annie yelled: “We made TV! We made TV!”

And I couldn’t help but think that we would all look back one day and be pleased that we had walked in the mountains when we could.

July 2007
Marble Mountains, California