Questions: Ownership
by Sarah Audsley

Stiff crunch of ice; punch down to thin layer of snow, mircospikes bite into the slick, rockytrail. This is my mountain.
I’ve traveled here so many times: in ice / in wind / in rain / in sun/ in blue-sky / in gray-sky / in all seasons / in love / out of love.
So many versions of myself have passed over this ridgeline, and it seems to be like any other day.
But, today, I consider you, my mountain. What does this possessive pronoun my really mean?
How can I own something that is not own-able? Who owns the air? Who owns the blue-gray- cloud-sky?
Or, the way I startled three ravens ready to roost for the night into flight, taking to the sky
(so quick!) they startled me?
What about the light that shifts and hits the tops of the trees, just so?
Who owns this wind that rips through the glacial-sculpted Franconia Notch? And, this beating heart inside my chest, this sweaty flesh, this wild spirit?
Today, and for all the long days, I let this mountain, this granite-sheered face, claim me as its kin.