I sit in the warm ambience of the lodge,

            staring at a pane of glass,

The thin yet impervious margin

            between activity and immobility

No sounds penetrate its transparent surface

Just the silent movie of the  playing

            behind its visage

My eyes gaze at the face of the mountain

Bristling with the stubble of forest and

the wrinkles of downy white

People drift down the trails of snow

            like sticks in a stream

The wind scatters the falling flakes,

            milky swirls,

The open air pulling with irresistible gravity

 

I feel myself rise and stride toward the door

I feel myself breach the barrier, and step out into the brisk breeze

I feel myself step slide onto the lift, and feel as it carries me up, up

And as I step out onto the summit, I finally feel

 

My skin senses the biting breeze,

            the swirling flakes ephemeral as they land

My ears hear the crunch of snow beneath my feet,

            the tangible silence hangs like mist

And my eyes reach out to the extent of human vision,

            The rolling hills, creases in the carpet of the Earth

The cream clouds, a velvet veil swallowing the horizon

And the speck of the wooden lodge silent at the base of the peak,

            The glass pane cloaked by distance…