The Poem That Awed the Outside Summit

On May 29, writer, performer, and cultural worker Bobby LeFebre took the stage at theOutside Summitin Denver to deliver “The Cathedral,” an original poem written for the gathering, which marked the second day of theOutside Days Industry Conference, which preceded the weekendOutside Days festival.

LeFebre, who was the Poet Laureate of Colorado from 2019 to 2023, evoked the wild as a place of beauty, belonging, humility, and renewal. He also asked us to consider what we lose when the convenience of the “glowing little worlds we carry in our pockets” keeps us removed from the living world.

For many in the room that morning, LeFebre’s words became one of the most affecting moments of the Summit. In response to numerous requests for the text of the poem, we are sharing it here in full, along with a video of his live performance.

The Cathedral

The cathedral is calling again.Its steeple stretching beyond sight.Blue in the morning.Black and burning with stars by nightfall.

Its vaulted chambers rise in ranges and ridgelines.Granite shoulders carrying snowmelt and thunder.Its stained glass pours through aspens in October.Through alpine lakes holding entire heavens inside their trembling surface.Its choir moves through pine needles.Through bike chains clicking over dirt.Through tent flaps snapping awake before dawn.

It breathes fog through our valleys.Drags rivers through stone.It scatters wildflowers across entire hillsideslike confetti from the hands of some ancient goddrunk on beauty.

The cathedral greets you before sunrise.Breath rising visible into the morning.Headlamps dissolving into the distance.Boots crunching gravel at the trailhead.The body preparing itselfto enter something sacred.

And there you are.Heart already beginning to climb.

The cathedral knows your name.It knows the sound of your exhaleswitchback after switchback.

Knows the metallic taste of altitude.The salt drying white against your skin.The ache in your calves.The blister forming beneath the heel.The exact moment exhaustiontransforms suffering into revelation.

At the edge of the ridge.At the summit where the windplaces both hands upon your facelike a blessingand says:

Because something has happened to us.We have mistaken convenience for living.Mistaken scrolling for witnessing.Mistaken being connectedfor being held.

Our thumbs flick upward endlesslywhile entire sunsets disappear behind us.

And stillsomething ancient inside the bodyremembers.

The smell of rain before it arrives.The language of fire.The holiness of cold water.The way silence can repair a human beingfaster than almost anything else.

Colorado is a Spanish word.“Colored red.”

Red like river silt.Like fountain formation.Like the bleeding bark of the Ponderosa Pine.

Long before trail maps,lift tickets,and branded fleece,the original peoples of this landunderstood the mountain.

Knew it was not simply scenery.

It was relative.Teacher.Deity.Mirror.

And maybe that is what we are all searching for now.

Because out there,the soul stands up straighter.Fear sharpens into presence.Fatigue breaks open into clarity.And wonder floods the body.

The cathedral was never builtfor spectators.

For the climbershanging fingertip miracles from sandstone walls.

For the river guidestraversing prophecy in whitewater.

For the skiers carving scriptureinto untouched snow.

For the childrenwith sappy hands,muddy knees,entire galaxies reflected in their eyes.

For the lovers tangled togetherinside sleeping bags before slumber.

For the ones trying to remembertheir body is an animalstill capable of astonishment.

It stretches through forests and deserts,coastlines and ice fields,through adobe villagesbreathing piñon wood into winter air.

The cathedral has no walls.No borders.No gatekeepers.No velvet rope separating people by pocketbook.

It belongs to everyoneand no one at all.

Let the mountain humble you.Let the river wake something sleeping in your blood.Let the weather rearrange your plans.Let the expansiveness remind youhow small you areand how miraculous that is.

Let the cathedral crack you open.Let it flood your chest with sky.Let it teach your bodythe forgotten language of awe.

Because out therepast the noise,past the urgency,past the glowing little worlds we carry in our pockets,something immense is waiting.

Something wild and holy.Something older than empire.Older than algorithm.

Its doors are open.Its altar stretches from horizon to horizon.Its bells are ringing through the peaks.

The earth—unbelievably,still despite us,after all we have taken,claimed,pretended to own—keeps inviting us back.

There is still timeto remember who and what we really are.