A Strange Occurrence on Mount Zirkel

As close to Wyoming as could be,

I rambled through the Park Range

forests at the base of Mount Zirkel

and began to climb some rocky ledges

until the pines began to thin and I paused

to stare into the limitless rolling plains of

the big North Park fringed with snowy

Never Summer peaks to the cloudy east.

Then it happened — I felt as though my

body was placed inside a vacuum when

something like a bullet whizzed just above

my head, but I couldn’t see or hear a

single thing — I had to assume it must have

been some sort of fast-diving alpine hawk,

or the product of my own imagination.