Again and again the slippage when mind drops and rises to a higher level, sloshing, tunneling through waterproof shoes walking beneath hi-voltage cables strung between round wooden pales. Smoke exhales its own odors while each breath contends with stale memories. It's not Tamalpais I see around the corner of my eyes but transversal mountains that surround me "without caring if it's really a hill / or even what a hill is."

 

pales: "To travel...beyond the pale, was to leave behind all the rules and institutions of (14th Century) English society, which the English modestly considered synonymous with civilization itself." Urban Dictionary.
Tamalpais: "Walking up and around the long ridge of Tamalpais, 'Bay Mountain,' circling and climbing..." G. Snyder. From, "The Circumambulation of Mt. Tamalpais."
without caring: N. Pesques, Physis. W. Lafayette, IN, 2007.