Pettit Lake - June's Kiss

Took 3 passes to get here: grand green valley, flat and flatter still cradled in the granite pyramids of the Idaho Rockies. Camp found near Pettit Lake, coaxed fire out of wet logs, a shelter in the small pines. One more journey for the day: step 'cross sage flats, dirt soft with fresh rain, flora adorned in green and gold. Clamber up hill, muddy feet sliding in sandals, til view is clear to the two matriarchs of this drainage, resting, like dear rivals, around the far valley. Yes, this is a motherly landscape! Nurturing arcadia, swaddled in snowy peaks & forest hills. Waters shallow and quenching, calm even in this weather. I think of the Ocean, airless dark, opacity of depth. The source of all life, yes—but in a hazy, nebulous sense, just out of reach, like a father known only in the murky memories of infancy. But here, with this wet earth between my toes, I know right where my weight is resting.

A few deer watch on my reverence, cautious but not afraid. Mind flushed and clear. Right here.

snow-driven peak

blown into cloud--

June's stormy kiss.