September 25

The peaks are now without names. The hills are just hills. The rivers are rivers. A seamless landscape, undivided and shifting endlessly as I walk. These are all just gestures on the horizon, unending backranges disappearing. Me thinking, "I could get to those peaks in less than a week." I am part of this picture, I am no longer a tourist here. The border I am about to cross is imaginary. The moose regards me with indifference and I the same of it. We are both just creatures, we continue on our respective paths. The days are colder now, the nights even moreso. Frost crushes the plants. Springs are frozen until noon. The sunlight too, is less and less these days. I walk as much as the sun will allow, still about 25 miles. Distance, too, is gone now. It is measured not by units but by my own will to go on, to endure, to struggle up rock and through water. Distance is measured by the wane of light, the ice coating the boulders in the river, the flush of birds. Distance, now, is measured by time, the onset of a new season, and vice versa. The spell is about to be broken, the trance interrupted. What consumes me now will be extinguished. The spaces in between my toes are bleeding, my calves are all cramped up. The sun is setting.