Absaroka

I wrote this one one evening in a tent pitched at an old elk hunting camp when I was supposed to be writing my final paper about wolf predation on elk and bison. Oops. It got done in the end though


Beyond these spiky spruce trees
there is nothing: the earth falls off there,
like in “The Neverending Story”
when places kept turning up as air.
There is nothing but this porous here
we inhabit: these sticky geraniums,
this swamp grass brushing the bottoms
of my palms, this wind whistling
through its teeth, the dead tree spires
on the hillside that have stood
these twenty years since the fires.
This lake, with a girl padding
across a spiky log bridge.
These wild strawberries,
runners spreading red across
dusty hillside, sweet gems nestled
in moist pockets at the base of trees.

We comb our fingers through the leaves
to find berries beneath. Wind combs
our sitting figures on the hillside, reminds
us of our inner bear. Barely beneath
the surface lurks this creature:
walking on logs, carefully placing soft paws;
snatching life from mountain streams
and carrying it away in its jaws;
combing hillsides for the reward
cubs (of all ages and species) like.

Wind washes through my porous bones,
my porous flesh, my window-self.
Flung open. Myself removed of self.
Consciousness falls like a husk
to the gentle hands of the wind:
like clothes falling to the floor,
like the awestruck thought
before all thought is erased:
could anything, possibly, be better?