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Let Me Count the Ways
How I miss the mountain, what it stood for,
represented, what it meant, what it said,
how it made me feel, what it did for me, that mountain,
that emergence, how it embodied the rage of whatever
it is I used to rage against, how I wanted to conquer
the mountain, scale the mountain, whether to hike it
or jog it, whether to sleep on it, whether to shoot its fauna
with camera or gun, whether to draw the mountain,
draw the view from the mountain, allude to the mountain,
name my firstborn after the mountain, before the mountain,
have a picnic at its foot, build a chairlift up it, open a tea
and sandwich shop at the end of the trail at its summit,
stamp my initials with giant concrete slabs on its face,
be the agent of the mountain, the lobbyist, the sculptor,
the detractor, sermonizer, liege, jester, or militia,
the one who unequivocally explains the mountain
mother of the mountain, husband of the mountain, haven
for the mountain, rocking chair for the mountain,
smokejumper, clear cutter, controlled burner, doppelganger,
molehill.
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