Hiking the San Gabriel
Wilderness one summer day
Along a narrow trail
Thousands of feet above the sea
Far from graffiti pests,
I stirred up a hornet’s nest
Escaping without a scrape.

Not Marshall;
Not Neil
With sharp missiles
Striking soft skin.

The three T’s
Were conquered
On a winter day
Among snow flurries:
Thunder Mountain,
Timber Mountain;
Telegraph Peak
All above
Nine thousand feet.

That was the day I came eye to eye
With a wild, big horn sheep.
I don’t remember who blinked first.

Marshall and I
Were not so lucky
On Old Baldy.

Retreating, the stranger said,
“Don’t risk it.
The wind picked me up;
Tossed me around.
Lost my cap.
Fleeced my gloves.
Tore them right off.”

With frozen hands and feet,
We turned back
A hundred yards
From the ten thousand foot summit
While the black storm
Swirled above our heads—
us seemingly trapped
in the blender.

I stop this string
With Marshall,
Another former Marine,
A friend lost in time
Except where these words land
In the sticky
World Wide Web.