First Visit to Paint Lick East and Getting it All

Bird wings explode between Walnut trunks
bike deposited this side the cattle gate

Goldenrod mob chest and arms late morning
beggar’s lice bathe my jeans in tags

Pushing into forest the ground opens up
the mountain begins as a swell breaking upon me 

Maple and Oak and Hemlock all greet me
their canopy mind swimming in wind

Overturned rocks reveal cool veins
I drink in silence under White Pine

It will be two days before returning here 
soon I will be in unending rhododendron 

The wind will yell die the land will shake me off
and I will look for a way over the primordial slab

I will climb where I can my body pressing stone
I will see the world and the world’s moon on it

Deskin Mountain ushers forth West Virginia’s
brain rippled sea of earth under the galaxy sky

There I will pray to the moment and to the place
for my eyes to become wider more open