Since our family moved to Bristol 15 years ago, I have regularly hiked the rugged spur of the Green Mountains backing the village. I've benefited in these criss-cross meditations from the parallel guidance of the Forest Service's topographical maps and Robert Frost's poetry. This is a poem that invites a reader up into the heights, an invitation I've accepted with gratitude.
Scars blaze a way into the wilderness.
Gray, barkless patches line the edges of my path, facing inward from the trunks of maples and beech. They mark where log trucks and skidders once scraped their way into the woods.