Verte Libre: Of Roots and Ridges

My first thought was to wish for my camera, but that was wrong.  It could not have captured what I was seeing - the lone ten foot fir whipped by the wind until it rippled and waved and looked as if it'd unearthed its roots and was spinning in place.  It made me think of Orpheus, his music so magical that the trees wrenched themselves from the ground and danced and followed him until he calmed them back into the earth.  Struggling up past the tree, the wind stealing my breath, it felt like it might reach out and touch me, but like the thirty or more times I'd passed along this ridge, that didn't happen.  Still, I was happy to continue on, unearthed and running.  Only now can I hear the music.  


Vert Libre: free-form poetry and observations from the trail

Vert Libre: The Swarm

They swarmed my passive black lab, and the mass turned like a hurricane tracked on radar - her small body the eye of the storm surrounded by churning golden fur. I could hear her yelps and all the growls, and picked up a rock - no fallen branches in reach - running to her defense. Seeing she wasn't alone, the pack fell away - seven, then five, then two. Then just she and I running down the gulch without looking back, rock still in my hand. We dared a quick drink at the junction, still breathing hard, then climbed the singletrack for home as if it had all happened long ago.

Vert Libre: free-form poetry and observations from the trail

Vert Libre: Changes - Fall Running

The running is so different this time of year. Races done and the big miles logged. Once overgrown trails cut back by the dry tail-end of summer and new chill of fall. I know I should be resting but legs and singletrack yell "speed" and push me along with reminders that this run - today, right now - could be the last one before the snows put things to rest until March? April? Heaven forbid, May? And though the edge is a little rough and my waist a little more full, the PR's still come. So free is the running, so relaxed, my legs find the contours of the trails like they never did in the heat of the season. Up the valley, I see the full grey clouds dropping snow, and the forecast says they're coming this way. Time to see how fast I really am.

Vert Libre: free-form poetry and observations from the trail