 |
|
|
 |
Mountains On My Mind - Poems © Richard F. Fleck
Richard F. Fleck (Ph.D., University of New Mexico) is currently retired with a recent visiting professorship at the University of Bologna, Italy in 2005.
|
|||
 A Medicine Bow Peak Ritual
By Richard F. Fleck - Each Labor Day for ten years straight my family and I would climb to the sky from Lewis Lake following a winding trail through patches of willows hiding gurgling streams with clear and icy water feeding roots of marsh marigolds and patches of bright and shining glacier lilies.  Heavy Summer Snow Atop the San Francisco Peaks
By Richard F. Fleck - Two German climbers signed out on the log writing that the snow was too deep and they finally had to turn around. “But that was yesterday,” remarked one of my friends as we shouldered our packs hit the trail where we rapidly gained a view of the entire Snow Bowl with lesser crests of the ancient volcano comprising the sacred San Francisco Peaks that rose forever skyward in glistening whiteness.  Deep Down the Kaibab Trail
By Richard F. Fleck - Deep within the spruce and fir, I make my camp along the North Rim, but before I eat my supper, I walk over to the nighttime edge of the Grand Canyon to peer three or four thousand feet down to see a tiny flickering campfire way below that will lure me down very early the next day from a chilly forty degrees into heat of mid-summer and then some— from Canadian forest to Mexican desert with shoulder-high prickly pears and Spanish bayonets  Arizona High
By Richard F. Fleck - Thin gray cirrus clouds streak the sky as we amble through a meadow of purple lupine and black-eyed susans with dark and pyramidic Humphreys Peak rising upward another 3000 feet. We enter sweet pine forest floors springing forth with mushrooms of every shape and color, white columbines and purple penstemon.  Atop Kings Peak
By Richard F. Fleck - Once on the summit of King’s Peak, highest in Utah, we notice a scarcity of flowers but a richness in diversity of rocks from granites to shales to quartzites and sandstones, all of reddish-brown hue.  Haystack Ramble
By Richard F. Fleck - From Geyser Pass through the woods, we emerge into a bright green meadow covered with all sorts of alpine flowers high in the La Sal Mountains of Utah. We rest just beneath the rocky slabs of Haystack Peak and search the tundra for rayless daisies that are known to grow  A Mellethin Sunrise
By Richard F. Fleck - I crawl out of my sleeping bag at Geyser Pass high in the La Sals just before sunrise to walk out into the meadow and look across at Mellenthin Mountain, dark and gray, but with a tinge of light near its summit, and as the sun rises, the mountain’s north face turns into a fancy’s show box with  Grandmother Spider Mountain
By Richard F. Fleck - Early in the morning we walk upwards through a slanted forest of aspen and fir and take delight in seeing a blue bird flutter in open meadows quite soft underfoot. We approach grassy hummocks reminding me of ever-so-green Ireland along the Irish Sea.  A Close Encounter in the Manzanos
By Richard F. Fleck - The sky remains cobalt blue and the pines barely whisper as I amble along the crest of the Manzanos overlooking Albuquerque’s tiny city streets, but I suddenly stop in my tracks when I almost stumble across a crude grave of cottonwood branches twisted into a circle  Turning Around on the Chisos Mountain Trail
By Richard F. Fleck - Through berried junipers and dry Scrub oak, we amble along a steadily Upward trail toward much higher Pinnacles with gliding ravens hoarsely Squawking like spirits of the mountains Overlooking agave, prickly pear and Yucca about to bloom, and from the Branches of pinon pines comes a Sprite-liken cheeping of white-breasted Nuthatches as volcanic Casa Grande Darkens in an approaching storm.  Ocotillo Sundown
By Richard F. Fleck - We stand in the desert and stare at the Chisos Mountains reddening in silence, each little rocky crag and slit given emphasis with nearby prickly pears brilliantly lit, but perhaps the most striking thing proves to be the way the setting sun illuminates spiked ocotillo plants with tiny red buds looking much like spirits emerging from thorny shells silhouetted by such ghostly mountains.  Electric Peak
By Richard F. Fleck - I cannot resist staring at distant Electric Peak from the top of Mount Washburn as I am drawn to its dazzling white snowfields attracting stands of clouds no doubt the build-up of a summer thunderstorm such as the one Henry Gannett felt in 1872 when his entire body painfully tingled  Spider Rock
By Richard F. Fleck - With what intensity the Anasazi must have had when they looked straight up from their ancient dwellings astride the base of Spider Rock rising eight hundred feet in massive redness above the valley floor in the midst of Canyon de Chelly.  Meditations at 10,000 feet
By Richard F. Fleck - I slowly amble toward the Beartooth Range looming above ten thousand feet and gaze at gray gigantic granitic uplifts carved with glaciated and snowy cirques, when I begin to feel a kind of syncline elevating my mind ever upwards to the highest summit bearing the name of Granite Peak that rises to 12,799 feet  Guadalupe Peak - High Above the Mesquite
By Richard F. Fleck - Our trail ascends the way past waxy leaves of Madrone trees with smooth and reddish trunks and on up past some blooming cholla in a cold March wind, and higher toward a limestone ledge washed with desert varnish looming above a pinon forest lending voice to the constant gusty winds of western Texas.  Keeping Up With Mini While Climbing Mount Wheeler
By Richard F. Fleck - We camped in Taos Valley on a cold September night while Mini, my blond cocker spaniel, danced around the tent as we tried to get some needed sleep before our tiring climb of Wheeler Peak.  Watermelon Peak
By Richard F. Fleck - On a pleasantly warm February day down Albuquerque way where plum blossoms scent the air, I look through my window at Sandia Crest sprinkled with a fresh morning layer of sugar snow and I know I must arise and go to the mountain's edge where prickly pear cactus and yuccas grow.  Specimen Mountain
By Richard F. Fleck - In my ranger days, it was my duty to lead a group of ten or twelve straight up the slopes of volcanic Specimen Mountain above Milner Pass.  Laramie Peak
By Richard F. Fleck - Bouncing along in a jeep toward distant Laramie Peak on the high plains of Wyoming, I think I must be some sort of charging bison stampeded by my own desire to climb a mountain of such a perfect pyramid shape standing so purple on the horizon.  A Winter's Climb of Mount Chapin
By Richard F. Fleck - In the summer Mount Chapin isn't much of a climb being only over twelve thousand feet, but in the winter, it's quite another matter with winds so fierce that tree-line pines are given a screeching voice ...  The Brocken Spectre atop Longs Peak
By Richard F. Fleck - We all look up at an eclipsing moon high in the sky as we approach the dark North Face in very crisp air of three a.m. Way toward Wyoming, streaks of Northern Lights shimmer while we inch our way to the summit over icy granite.  Brocken Spectre Atop Mount Fuji
By Richard F. Fleck - At sunrise we push onward above the ninth station toward the summit as layers of cloud fill the tea-leaved valley floor while a ball of sun slowly peeks over the Pacific rim illuminating bright red Buddhist torii until we reach the very top  Herded by Sheep off Jicarita Peak
By Richard F. Fleck - We rested at Santa Barbara Pass and proceeded up a faint little path toward the high, round summit of Jicarita Peak with haunting views into the very streets of Taos and mountains far beyond until we sensed the presence of two bighorn sheep with spiraling horns ...  Rock-holed Sky of Earthborn Spirits
By Richard F. Fleck - Circumnavigating Vedauwoo where calls of ravens echo, I look up at towering rocks with holes exposing azure sky in a strong sun yet with a tinge of autumn as quaking aspen trees tremble with each breeze that combs through fields of green sage  Roped to the Sky
Richard F. Fleck - Massive bear-clawed columns rise into the sky peppered with roped climbers working their way ever upward some eight hundred feet above lodgepole pines laced with prayer flags fluttering in a spirit wind. |
|
Copyright 2009 Skram Media LLC, All rights reserved.