A John Muir Trail Poem

Live your life as if it were impossible to fail,

said a warrior-poet on the John Muir Trail.

I’m a meal for mosquitos, an ape without a tail,

a real spicy Cheeto in the belly of a whale.

Going over hill and dale,

up the switchbacks and through the shale.

Pelted by the hail to the pass, where the clouds part the veil,

and the peak shines clean as a fresh white sail.

It’s mostly humpin’ and a-schepplin’.

With this big old pack, I’m either dumb or intrepid.

Didn’t