I Have a Story to Tell,

Of mountains, ice, and creatures, roaming the dark of night.

Only an hour to sunrise, two miles to go.

The trail had changed: no longer cutting back on itself,

The dawn would not break for hours and the sun would only shine on the summit.

Still weary from miles climbing up, up, always climbing,

I woke with mere hours of sleep with which to reach the summit.

Three hours until sunrise: summer-warmth had no hold above tree line.

The bare stone froze in the moon’s icy gaze.

The hike began. Through snow-melt-streams,

Cascading over the trail, and up steps of frosted rock,

Past what little plants that cling to the barren mountain.

With moon and star to light my path, I hiked on.

Then, a chilling sight: where rock and trail should be,

Snow and ice were now. The switchback trail,

Visible across the snowfield, would lead on to the summit.

Knowing that a missed step could be fatal, I ventured out

Onto the slippery surface now glowing blue in the moonlight.

Breathe and step: Inch by inch, I denied the pull of gravity.

Then, solid-ground arose beneath my balanced feet.

I crisscrossed the mountainside, each pass higher than the last.

Then, in the dark, there were eyes. Four pair,

Burning cold in the night: their gaze never left mine.

The antlers behind the eyes were massive.

Each pair belonged to a bull elk, and I was in their home.

Slowly, I hiked, past the glowing eyes, and onward to the summit.

It now wound through a boulder-studded moor.

Great gates of rock rose out of the ground

Like sentinels staring out across the frosted field.

The stones, stacked to form pillars, served as the only guide,

Marking where the trail lay. Each crest of a hill

Looked like the top, but only the last one was.

In the predawn light, I sat atop the world

And watched as the sun rose out of an otherworldly-sea,

The peaks of mountains, islands and the clouds, waves.

I have hiked hard under the light of a night sky.

I have trekked above tree line with only hours of sleep.

I have summited a mountain of rock, ice, and snow

And seen the sun rise from on top of the world.

I Am Matt