North of Yellowstone

If I had my way I’d just swing
from one trapeze to another all the time.
Maybe that’s why I’m fighting

the gray doves of the daily grind—
their little claws catching on my sweater—
and living on memories sometimes.

When I move slowly they nest in my hair.
I think I was running all summer long—
They were content to settle in the cedars.

In scree fields two miles high we sang a song
by the Fleet Foxes—only remembered the first two
verses, drove Ari mad. Got lost before the pass—on the long

dark downhill the day’s heat seeped through
our pores like an ebbing tide. We tried to hold on to this
wild, vital life but each day bled into

evening. Two weeks fell away with the soft passing of the sun in
its’ arc from gold to blue. In all our talks about Buddhism I never
learned how to let go. At home in the Tidewater, grasping, gasping

for mountain air, the birds returned. Roosevelt called it “gray twilight”
but sadness isn’t a static place.
It’s a slowly throbbing flock that comes home for the winter.

I should forge a more lasting season inside. A space
away from storms where birds won’t rush the doors.
When I run or sing harmonies they settle on the lake

and trees, their small wail lapping against the shore.
In my dreams I sing and play guitar all the time.
In real life I only practiced when there

was a guy to impress. Harmonies bounce around in my mind—
they want to get out, turn into fleet-footed songs
running through the snow, wreathing me in rhymes.