Mile 5—

Seven Utes Mountain

And I am rocked in a bowl of sky below Neaha-no-xhu, the Nokhu Crags, in this dappled just-after- 
sunrise still chilled here at the end of July over 11,000 feet into the stars. Where am I? The woman 
ahead of me stopping, handscoming away from her face covered in blood. I am balanced in a now 
in between sunbleached rocks and grassesbacklighting like knives.

I am 5 miles into this 64-mile day and already doubting my existence. Mountain made of flowers in 
the shapes of rocks, dirt that smells of sky, these runners more possibly than maybe and I want to run
with them toward the night andnot have to breathe anymore, know this body is just a feeling.

I follow the pack over the ridge and cannot hear my feet. Maybe I am still in my tent. Maybe still in 
that hospital, feeling I will be 14 forever if I can stay under 100 pounds. I cannot forget those years 
ever happened. There is still aboy with scars up his arms inside of me. Who knew a boy who loved 
a gun more than anyone. Don’t we all want to break into light sometimes. In the thin alpine air, I 
hear a runner say, This is Seven Utes Mountain, so what’s an Ute?and I want to run because I need to cry. 
We are still here. But don’t we all want to leave footprints somewhere to beremembered by.

The ridge tips, vertigo into shrub and tree, and runners avalanche around me. I hear This is why we do 
it and I’m notsure what This or It is but I can’t keep a sugar-dizzy grin from my face as each stride 
becomes a lift, tilt, fall. All wewant is to arrive, and then start off somewhere else to arrive again. We 
want to believe there is somewhere worthrunning toward. We want to run so long the running- 
toward becomes a running-into a world we can believe canbelieve in us—

Mile 14—

American Lakes Trail

Off the ridge and the sky again

blooms

in aquamarine, a wonderful shiver

when vertigo rests a velvet paw

on the back of your neck

look up, look up, look up an up that is down quiver the sky

shiver me blue

sing willow, willow blue

and the day is still golden

Here is a runner singing the trail with her trekking poles

ver-ti-go, ver-ti-go let it go swing low

pronghorn, black bear, moose

let me run behind her

let this day unroll velvet and blue beyond time—

*

My god

here I can see forever trail wrapping around a ridge

miles of mountains stretching

into Wyoming a backbone, a cradle

the Continental Divide

and here I am

smaller than the wildflowers underfoot

I reach out my arms

the day wakes, stretches, and walks on

What would it mean to be awake be a wake be a ware

of this constant smallness push me to my knees

I could cry, sometimes

I can feel so found when I realize I am so lost—

*

All these strange feathers northern flicker, cliff swallow willow, willow

no violets here to tell me when it is spring no fireflies in summer

but the rivers all thicken here too in June

I remember

watching for flood wanting, sometimes

the holler to be swept away

don’t we all long for an apocalypse

sometimes the starting-over would be so much easier than keeping-on

a bag full of hospital bracelets

to think

I thought

my worth could be measured by the size of my wrist

by how many ribs ridged shadow in the light

there was a time

there was half a lifetime I never thought

I would live past 30—

*

There was a boy who built a world smaller than he could fit inside

either he or the world had to break open

O-

-pen sometimes the world is too much

Sometimes I want too much

lying in the river shaking with the want

to be helpless and small again

to break into smoke and stars

to give in to the flood

sometimes it is all I can do

to keep moving forward on this trail what does it mean

when you want to kiss each tree

each small flower because you were locked inside for 5 years

breath and footfall rocking down the trail

body and heaven break me open

with the beauty

of some small yellow flower

there is nothing holier than dirt

there is nothing

I could want more

than to run this ridge forever beyond time—

Mile 33—

Hidden Valley Trail

Breaking out of trees into a rockslide boulder field

explosion of granite all around me and I am lost.

No sense of scale.

Rocks larger than houses, all

sharp edges and flat surfaces and I have never been

more aware of my small soft self.

The world fractures into this crushable heart.

I cannot go forward into the rocks. I cannot

go back. I cannot go back. I cannot. I have to go

forward and I do, holding my breath, watching

aspen on the other side shake an avalanche of hands

a warning and a welcome

joined at the root.

Alisi, grandmother, watch me now

kvlesteyeti I plead

kvtehtalesti I pray

watch me now Alisi now

*

kvlehsehvskv I step, and now Alisi

kvtvnaseni I crawl

hold these rocks still let me not

shiver them let me not shift them

let me float the air over them

between them let me pass through now

kakilawhiskv I go up

kakilawhiskv I go up

all these boulders a parade

of black horses

saqilivnekv’nvke

all whisper still hush now

you have them caught in the door of this moment

with a dream of sorghum sweet and kaheuhvskv I believe

in you and I am through feet on dirt again and kvleclegv Alisi

I thank you grandmother searcher whistler speaker stone

red bird deep rose sweetgum bone back into the forest now I go —