You have been gone so long
You are a mountain in my mind
I wander your slopes, finding different ways
on different days, in different dreams.
Remembering and forgetting mingle, so
I get to know you better and worse,
as I explore what’s much bigger than I.
These treks change my vision, I see your faults,
deep ravines that hold ancient boulders
and timber swept down in recent storms.
I see what I should have seen when you lived,
but love and need blocked dangerous vision.
I see how weak you were and how much
pain there was in your wanting what you
couldn’t have, I see that envy made you sly.
The mountain is beautiful but not tame –
storms rip down its flanks at all seasons.
I love to spend time on the mountain
knowing I will never know it, knowing
that it will keep changing and changing me,
knowing that it has no summit, no way
to place a period at the end of a sentence
You have been gone so long
You are a mountain in my mind