Rattlesnake Mtn., N.H.

As mountains go, this is a
modest mound of granite whose
summit is readily attainable by
locals, an immensely popular
destination of which generations
wax nostalgic recounting fond
memories of weddings officiated
at the summit, bands playing, sound
carrying down to the lake below.
Imagine the bride in white finery
and hiking boots, hoofing up the
slopes with her wedding party;
tuxes and frothy dresses, children
in tow. Accessible, the pride of
the community. Most days clouds
park over the summit where
stunted pines and alpine growth
flourish. This day is one of
genial sun floating on an ocean
of periwinkle blue, robins
trilling praise and a freshening
breeze. A week-day, the climbers
are the septuagenarians, grey and
cheerfully dogged, walking sticks
propelling their rude girth forward.
They stumble only occasionally,
sure-footed by long memory over
protruding rocks littering the
gravelly trail, over a cross-work of
tree roots, boots plunging in the
mud-sucking bog the trail has
become in this year of uncommon
rain saturating the soil that nature
sifted over the granite surface,
penetrating and suffocating the
landscape incapable of absorbing
more; excess in a continual 
exercise of shedding each new
rainfall, slithering down the worn
trail in rivulets, hosting the larvae
of black flies, so on this superbly
atmospheric day, clouds of tiny
fierce flesh-biters collect their toll
from the ample flesh of the
senior contingent struggling to
achieve a long-familiar goal.