Not That The Story Need Be Long

Schubert: Symphony No. 5

Let me suggest
a theme for you:
to state to yourself
precisely and completely
what that walk
over the mountains
amounted to for you,
— returning to this essay
again and again,
until you are satisfied
that all that was important
in your experience
is in it.
Give this good reason
to yourself for having
gone over the mountains,
for mankind is ever
going over a mountain.
Don't suppose that
you can tell it precisely
the first dozen times you try, but at 'em again, especially when, after a sufficient pause, you suspect that you are touching the heart or summit of the matter, reiterate your blows there, and account for the mountain to yourself. Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.
--Henry David Thoreau
from a letter to Harrison Blake
1857

HAUNTED CANYON
TURQUOISE CANYON BIGHORNS
ELVES CHASM
TOWER OF SET