Mount Escuidilla Poem by Robert Rorabeck

Words on the cherry trees
bring out the eyes
of the mountain lions
who strut prehistorically
through the fire sewn
aspen groves on the back
of the Buffalo Mountain,
Esquidilla, a high lady
of rocks rises nakedly
from the white Arizona
plane of blistering sun
and sadistic desert cactus
where once the conquistadors
passed her in a trail of
glinting armor ants to the
city of gold the city of their
bloody bone meal
watched by the lady Esquidilla
laying naked on her couch of
the world the mother of earth
waiting centuries surpassing wars
and evolution coming alive
in different fires being riddled
by grizzly bears and their nastier
ancestors and ridden by
mountain lions, lumberjack
beavers and madmen who
talked to the stones of her skin
through this time she waited
for me
I am hers and in
seasons I move on her
every week up to the
ranger tower, the tiara
bejeweling her 11,000 ft. head
so she may pollinate
me and I can go home
impregnated with
mountain wisdom
my legs burning as I
think about her pretty
skin and the august
in heat coyote that followed
after me howling like
Picasso after my hiking legs
wishing to have sex with
me or my dogs, until I
threw bits of her flesh at
it, I would not be
unfaithful to her, though
she may take on many
other seasonal lovers
none, not even the reoccurring
forest rangers and
firewatchers, are as
forever constant and faithful
to her as I am
I’m her #1 love with
my lungs and all my bits
are a sauce for her, and
my smell drives her
trees and meadows wild
I know every bit of her
trails and I can break
down our love making into
parts from the aspen forest
around her snow white legs
to the hill side up her powerful
flanks to the open meadow
around her stomach to
the dark and ample wood
of her breasts and finally to her
majestic head I listen to every
part of her panting and moving
as we have sex over the course
of an at least 2 hour session
on average, as I go back down
her she rises and heaves and her
winds moan the words of her
pleasure as her woods tingle
with my footsteps
and when its over
like a true lover
she silently releases me
and I drive my truck
off her knowing that I will
return again in spring, summer
fall and winter
I’ve been with her on
Christmas morning
with a 65 lb pack
and her soft snows licking
up past my knees, she’s
given me her frostbite mark
I’ve scrambled on her,
become lost in her woods,
laid and read books on her
ejaculated in hidden wooded
groves into her naked, I’ve
scrambled up the hidden rock slopes
on her north face, I’ve
searched like an Indian
for her mythical ice caves, I came
to her when my bad woman
left me
she is my good woman
she is my only woman
I’ve written novels about
her, I’ve drunken the beads
of her dewy sweat and listened
to her breathing with my
ear pressed to her heart
and plucked her lashes of
wildflowers I know her better
than I’ve ever known any woman
of the earth, better than the 14,000 ft
Amazonian whores in Colorado I’ve
given conjugal visits to when they
were not blistering season, when
they were in heat in season,
and she’s expecting me now
she may take on many other lovers
while I’m gone, but this is just
her way,
she accepts everyone on to her,
she’s not a murdering mountainness
like some of the Himalayan women are,
and she hungers above all for me
and the feel of my bones on her
earth as the wind takes her
clothes off and I am enveloped in her
atmosphere her breath the pollinated
gravity she pulls
me to her
as she lies bare naked
and hauntingly beautiful under
the star bejeweled plane of celestial
spheres
the Arizona sky
where the moon hangs down
engorged a full stomach
ready close to have a look at
her flawless pretty face
she is the one I travel to
she is the one perfected by
time
where she looks she can see
far off Mexico ancient human
sacrifice towering over Aztecan
death pyramids
the death of all dinosaurs
the ice age
and she will stand still
when one day the humans
recede into caves
like a vampire she will
always remember my love
and feel my rotting coffin
with her mineral veins
when I am buried
in the earth near her
feet
this, my constant love
my rockslide of passion
my Arizona Mountain Queen
Mount Esquidilla