The Road to Glacier

This mountain had given me
a lifetime of rejection.
It had nearly cost me my life.
So much pain and suffering
to come this far.

A sudden hailstorm.
Crash. Police. Ambulance.
Motorcycle parts all over the road
Somehow I walked away with scrapes.

I arrived at the mountain broken.
Bleeding.
My motorcycle damaged,
pieces of it missing
and pieces of me as well.

I did not come
to conquer the mountain.

I came trembling.

For years it had turned me away
with thunder and lightning,
hail and deep snow,
ice upon the road.

It rose before me like Sinai:
terrifying,
beautiful,
forbidding.

Others come easily.
They cross it and continue on.
For them, perhaps,
it is only a mountain.

Why, then, had it held me off?

I do not know.

Somehow, through all those years,
it had become a sacred quest.
Not something to possess,
but something before which
I must learn to yield.

And today, finally,
the mountain let me in.

Not with thunder.
Not with hail.

With the warmth of the sun,
with flowers beside the road,
with snow shining above me.

It was as though
heaven had opened.

And I stood there,
broken,
bloodied,
in tears.

Not as a conqueror,
but as one permitted to behold.

I could only gaze in wonder.

How terrifying.
How deadly.
How beautiful.

What majesty.
What glory.
What power.

Who made such a thing?

And who gave this creature
eyes capable of seeing it,
a heart capable of receiving it,
a soul capable of awe?

I stood before the mountain,
overwhelmed,
trembling with joy.