a painter on a peak.

on the day that e and i climbed to the rocky crest of mt. colden there were only a few people on the top, none of them did we say much too, besides talking to a woman who asked about the route we had just taken up the mountain and then leaned in to her partner and asked him if they should go that way or the way they came from, his response, "whichever way you'd like to go..." and she turned and they together headed down the path we came from.  when we first approached the summit, there were two girls eating lunch and watching the vista and the lakes below, a perfect place to eat lunch, though e and i carried on to find some respite from the wind, a little covered area where we could fire up our stove and make soup.

one man, a bearded merlin, roamed the summit. i, naturally, said hello and he just looked at me and carried on, walking round the peak with a bag and what looked like a little easel attached to it. all the folks left this high peak and when e and i awoke from a nap, the only one remaining was the merlin and his easel.  he was, in fact, drawing. the easel propped on this knees and thighs, pen or paint even to paper high in the sky, following the valleys in the distance and in unison with both his eyes and his hand, it made me think of the group of seven and their pilgrimages to the canadian wilderness.

an artistic merlin in the woods with his easel. the adirondack high peaks, july 2012.

love and health to all...