Mountain man

 He was warm and fed, ready for one last walk through the forest. He dressed warmly and didn't look back as he closed his world behind him, becoming his own last memory. The cold took his breath away, and he soon grew numb, but he moved onward towards something that had been calling him like a moth to a flame. Was it his destiny, he wondered, was he meant to walk off into the trees and die a lonely death, or was he headed towards a fate much bigger than that?

She left him some years back, saying the rugged life wasn't for her as she closed the door behind her. He was sad, I guess you'd say, but his love for the mountains and forests was all the companionship he needed, and they never judged him or made him regret the life he had chosen. But they did speak to him in a language he understood, like how the leaves would fold themselves in half to catch the rain, or when the sudden stillness came, he knew a storm was approaching.

He listened to the winds and heard them moan when death was in the air. He heard it angry and othertimes as peaceful as a baby's sleep. He searched the sky for a guiding star to guide him when he found himself misplaced, but never lost, and he never let a shooting star get away without a wish, and he had seen a hundred rainbows but never the pot of gold.

Now older than some of the trees, he walked slowly, and his reflexes were not as good as they used to be, but he knew every square inch of his mountain and forest, rarely walking on the same path twice. Some who said they knew him really meant to say theyd heard of him, the old mountain man who spoke to the winds and talked to anything living in the trees, the caves, and even the beaver dams.The crazy one who danced naked in a meadow holding a mason jar filled with fireflies to light his way.

Should you ever venture onto his mountain, you may catch a glimpse of him splashing in a cold mountain stream and catching fish, which he would thank for giving up their lives so he could eat. Or maybe youd see him reaching his arms to the heavens in prayer as he often did. Whatever you may see him do, he does it not out of craziness but out of love for everything that surrounds him. A simple man with simple needs, a man of the mountains and trees.

Mike  2025