Liberties

So many slopes they touched, and once leaned outside while I tromped into the parlor  of an alpine monastery, clattering boots, my bluster  welcomed to dine silently with the brothers  who had also vowed to get to the powder  of what is daily fused with life: to glide, to carve,  to schuss and float with what the spirit clamors for — even though my body’s sluggish, slow, it remembers  mountains, glory in the snowfell  hill, its bluebell kindred skills — a rough jouissance is what I brought, in all my choices good  and not so good, the might-have-beens  and new offerings from the range  I’m entering, something milder — I’d still strive  for the milk of kindness, hold out my simmering  so the fat might rise like broken proteins  to the top, to be skimmed off.