Hike the Upper Dungeness Trail,
then up a ridge west of Camp Handy.
Steep old fisherman’s track
under July afternoon sun.
Thirty steps, gasping stop, thirty more,
my old legs and asthmatic lungs struggling
to keep up.
Admire huge tree boles and lush delphinium
before starting again.
Then Goat Lake at last,
air brilliant and snowmelt bubbly.
Bugs not bad, good night’s sleep.
But say, just how much longer
will I be able to rise
after squatting to shit
in these lovely mountains?
(No. 55 in a series of responses to Han-Shan’s Songs of Cold Mountain)
Goat Lake, one of those many places of infinite beauty in the Olympic Mountains. Arduous ascent and descent, but worth it to let the place have a look at you just for a while.
Han-shan’s poem (Burton Watson’s translation):
Cold cliffs, more beautiful the deeper you enter–
yet no one travels this road.
White clouds idle about the tall crags;
on the green peak a single monkey wails.
What other companions do I need?
I grow old doing as I please.
Though face and form alter with the years,
I hold fast to the pearl of the mind.
(Numeric reference to Han-shan’s poem reflects the order of presentation in Burton Watson’s translation, presented as Cold Mountain, Columbia University Press, 1970.)
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