TO CLIMB THE MOUNTAIN AGAIN

"post graduate 'beat road' reflections"

by

T. Kilgore Splake

early morning first dawn seeping through overhead foliage, casting faint shadows over "moose-crossing" campground, above leanto shelter's open side, up early, a mountain to climb, determined game face focus, doing what a man's gotta do, long arcing stream of piss, steamy mists rising from cool morning stones, greybeard poet at mercy of swollen prostate with mind of its own, heading off and up the trail through opening in lower tag alder forest, chilly october breeze clearing early fog, steady and careful steps, hoping pace loosens muscles, lubricates achy arthritic joints, easing hike up mount katahdin's rocky face, not and old man yet, still some time before bolo string-tie, cane and walker, little barky dog companion, raising prize winning roses, senior citizen's "drop-in-center" regular gossiping about marquette general operations of others,

stepping around larger boulders, careful not to slip on loose talus and scree, hardscrabble mountainside tailings, climbing a mountain alone again, feeling same emptiness, like years ago when younger i came to visit, climb katahdin's summit, vague memories of past lifetime, leaving wife, sons, ted and mike, little daughter casey, divorce, nervous meltdown, battle creek sanitarium outpatient survivor, just barely finishing out spring college teaching semester, off out east to climb a mountain, get self-esteem centered again, windsor, canadian customs "mayday" border inspectors extremely curious about vitamin pills, large money cache for summer child support pays, motoring across southern ontario flatlands sipping dark canadian ale, chewing spicy smoked sausages, late afternoon passing through toronto, six-lanes of bumper-to-bumper metropolitan madness, late night exhausted collapse, sleeping on pickup truck seat, highway motel-service station-restaurant complex, easy early Sunday morning ride through deserted montreal streets, quiet anonymous speedometer miles turning along st. lawrence river, later coming on night again, noticing metis beach weekend campers packing up, preparing to go back to homes i didn't have, midnight top of gaspé peninsula cold early spring winds continuously blowing off atlantic ocean, up the st. lawrence bay, awake in early morning darkness, freezing, drowsy poet back on the road, seeking warmth from truck heater, inner whisper growing to loud "coffee, i need hot coffee" throbbing brain echoes, later morning 12-pack of black horse ale, dalhousie government store, breakfast relief for near terminal case of rattle-skull raw nerves, later afternoon guilty conscience attack outside moncton exit-ramp-turnoff, road can opener mysteriously missing, punching open warm ale bottles on sharp hood ornaments, tossing foamy brown bottle bombs into roadside tall grasses, oblivious to passing cars, other provincial highway drivers, nighttime camping out in yard of old maine farmstead, only listing grey-weathered barn timbers, cobblestone house foundation, a few apple trees remaining, fitful, restless attempt at slumbering, alky-thorazine nightmare images of falling off a mountain, plummeting forever down terrifying endless abyss,

taking time out, resting bones, back against huge granite boulder, chugging couple small cans of warm oj, generous mouthfuls of "trail-mix," energy push for continuing ascent to katahdin's summit, momentarily thinking of ersatz "beats," jack and neal "on the road" wannabes living quiet unexciting lives, pretenders of hemingway, bukowski, jackoffs without authentic selves, unique personalities and chasing their own hungry dreams, remembering line from truman capote's the grass harp, "a man who doesn't dream is like a man who doesn't sweat, he stores up a lot of poison," sad, faceless mass of others too scared to climb a mountain, challenge the unfamiliar, missing out on thrill of surging passions, succeeding, winning where others fail or quit, stay-at-home "beat-road" adventurers never worrying about where they'll sleep each night, what dangers lurk in strange dark evening shadows,

back climbing over small boulders, picking way around large rocky outcroppings, mountain slope taking sharp sudden rise toward summit, greybeard poet on a mountain climbing odyssey hoping to achieve finish for love affair, relationship turned savage, like shattered life years before, realizing I had to experience same sad loneliness all over again, aware it wouldn't be any less painful this time, as steinbeck commented in travels with charley, "there seemed to be no cure for loneliness save only being alone," "i had to learn to be alone again, it takes a little time," old man, greybeard poet, casualty of foolishly loving a much younger woman, single-mother and poet, playing the tarot card "fool," pursuing life to its fullest, suddenly feeling like woeful circus clown, hearing distant raucous laughter, noisy "tsk-tsks" of others too timid to chance love, wildass risk of taking their hearts to new, intoxicating heights, backwater shrink's calm whisper still echoing in distant quiet interiors, "hey, listen tom, you can't grieve losing what you never really had,"

finally crawling over final remaining boulders, standing atop katahdin, scoping out distant horizon, picking out "owl's roost," connecting mountain peak to the south, noting "lost pond floodwaters" or merely a mirage in still early morning haze, shedding daypack ruck, flopping down beside "thoreau springs," mountaintop creeklet trickly fed by late autumn rains, parched, wishing to slake thirsts face down in stream, but not wanting to chance "giardia" protozoan infection, invite severe, maybe debilitating stomach cramps, quickly off down spiny rock-ledge trail connecting katahdin with owl's roost peak, climbing over and around stony escarpment outcroppings, small rock caves inviting, "come, snuggle in, hunker down and stay awhile, rest, poet," yet dark heavy winter clouds scudding across the sky, ominous signal of soon coming on winter, arctic time when katahdin covered by blanket of "long white," locked in silent icy bliss,

still pain of heartbreak weighing heavily on grizzled greybeard poet's mind, sad young woman unable to display affection, fearing intimacy of letting someone get a little too close, certain if she said simple, tender "i love you, tom," she would be sacrificing her necessary control, importance of maintaining a safe distance, creative marriage between two soulmates kaput, dream of living like dreyfuss and melinda dillon movie, "close encounters of the third kind," exciting couple chasing adventures together, growing, staying interesting to each other gone,

her poor little daughter still without stable man in her life, greying poet believing a dad is the most important man in a child's life, deeply suspicious that broken or distant child-father relations result in additional amounts of stress, loneliness, and despair for both father and child, like sadness in alan catlin's memoirs, his "foster daddies" and painful feelings of being "used, confused, and abused,"

looking up suddenly, noticing rocks giving way to small trees looming ahead, trail moon beginning a downward descent, overwhelmed by surprising burst of energy, feeling, time to get down off this mountain, yes, leave the heights, hurts, and bruises behind, enough, no more mourning over honest attempt at love gone awry, time to hit the road, quiet speedometer numbers, turning auto-tranny miles home, return to backwater poetarium, write again as i have lived my life, creating new poems, telling fresh stories like i have nothing to lose.