3491. FIVE MOUNTAINS LATER

FIVE MOUNTAINS LATER

I was lost in the city 'midst a forest of gold;

hundreds of people passing  -  skirts on the

High Line, the gallery girl in her pleated

brown crepe, showing off somehow a

too-splendid ass for my taste. I sat

back and wondered where to go.

Tallman Mountain beckoned.

-

About ten miles away, perhaps,

off the city's rim, astride the Hudson's

banks, on the other side. Hikers had

been lost there, once or twice, as well,

someone had been killed or raped. Never

matter, that, outside my, let's say, zone

of interest. I moved on like the dross I was.

-

My whole point in being here was to see the

heights of achievement and the fame of

renown. Artists, those guys over there,

with the bent wrists and champagne glasses,

they were the new ones now with the money.

Talking of 'Art', they pointed and signified.

-

What finally broke me was the wedge;

you know 'beware the wedge' itself  -  the

littlest thing that beckons the decline, the

pebble that begins that avalanche the kills.