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and in the end, it turns out the quiet is what gets me, wedged like the tongue of a first kiss lower lip, dusky pink of a mountain's collarbone we scrambled up upper lip, sky I feel like I should say something to chase back the awkwardness, but at that moment, I forget how to speak The unblinking sun beats me at a staring contest I am naked as an offering coming here thinking that dignity was in being clothed but there is some reductionist beauty stripping away layers of me until there is nothing for my bones to offer but surrender *** eKY Flood Relief Annotation 8/11/22 The top of Pine Mountain reminds me of the limitless first moments of falling in love; which is to say, falling upwards, toward so much possibility. Something about clambering up a steep incline, cursing the slippery underside of your sandals and feeling your fingernails fill up with soil, makes reaching the peak a surprise every time. But can a summit be a surprise if it also reminds me of all the times I've ever looked at a person and felt my heart swell? I remember taking this picture in the company of Lucy, Wilson, and Ian--fellow Robertson scholars in our 2016 Whitesburg cohort--and thinking that, no matter what, they were woven into the beautiful memory of this sweaty moment at Mars Rock. I remember splashing around Wiley's Last Resort with Brandon, tugging a peddleboat into the lake as our much drier friends tsk'ed at us from the dock. I remember pretending to be a goat walking nearly perpendicular to the surface I was standing on because Nathan, already far ahead of me, had chosen the toughest way up. Support good memory-making, both past and future, in a region recovering from devastating floodwaters: https://tinyurl.com/ekysummits  Return to the Kentucky Collection.
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