5. Dreams Are Real
The day passes into a book
For a time we are outside
Time at sea in an open boat
Rogue waves hit from nowhere
Cast into the next reality
Shackleton saw a wave so big
He thought it was a cloud
The boat rolled under and came
Up in a new world later
On South Georgia Island
Sleeping in a cave he leaped
To his feet shouting and hit
His head on the roof of the cave
So hard he almost killed himself
Dreaming of that wave
6. Seen While Running
Four birds in the air fighting
kestrel
magpie
crow
hawk
all involved spinning
in a brief spat overhead
CROSSING MATHER PASS
At the turning point of my life
I hiked toward Mather Pass.
With every step clouds thickened above
Until the world was roofed in gray.
Thunder rolled from west to east
Like big barrels over a floor
And as I crossed great Upper Basin
It began to snow.
Soon I walked in a white bubble
Slush piled on every rock.
Warm and dry in parka and pants
I felt my life fall away.
I gave it up. Fly away
On the wind, drift into slush,
I’ll never go back! I quit!
Each step up was a step away.
A convex shattered slope of stone
Rose into mist. A boulder wall.
The pass on top, unseen. The trail
Swept up without a switchback,
Right to left in a single shot,
The Muir Trail crew’s one touch of art.
It cost a life: I passed a plaque
And read the name: my own.
Then I was in the pass.
Flakes blew up one side and
Down the other. In the lee I tried
To eat but started shivering. Go.
With easy strides I clumped down
The white Ss on the northern slope
Until I saw the Palisade Lakes,
Far far below. The sun came out.
White lace on wet gold granite,
A new world, a new life,
A new world I’ll make it new!
I passed two hikers setting camp.
Did you come over in that storm?
Yes, I said, I left my life on the other side
And now I’m not afraid.
NIGHT IN THE MOUNTAINS
“Or I can say to myself as if I were
A wanderer being asked where he had been
Among the hills: ‘There was a range of mountains
Once I loved until I could not breathe.’ ”
1. Camp
Stream falling over rock:
Loud music. Night and a candle.
Halfway through this life:
It doesn’t feel so long.
Ridges, cliffs, peaks, cols:
I’ll never stop wanting them.
Ponds, meadows, streams, moss:
My knees number them.
Stars outside my tent door:
All my troubles as far away.
2. The Ground
Candleflame, minutes.
Pine needles, months.
Branches, years.
Sand, centuries.
Pebbles, millennia.
The bedrock, eons.
Me and broken sticks.
3. Writing by Straight
Can’t see the words.
Waterfall a rope of sound,
Rushing about, pushed by the wind.
Trees black against the stars.
Dim blank white page.
I write on it and see a
Dim blank white page.
The story of my life!
Juniper, tent, rock, dark.
Wind dying. My heart
At peace. A Friday night.
The Big Dipper sits on the mountain.
My friends lie in their tents.
My back against the white rock,
Star bowl spinning overhead:
Feel the movement and soar away.
Who knows how many stars there are,
All those dim ones filling the black
Until it seems no black is there.
And then you see the Milky Way.
The sky should be pure white with stars,
That’s black dust up there blocking the view,
Carbon just like us! All flung together through space
In just this way.
By starlight everything is clear.
Trees are alive. Rocks are sleeping.
Waterfalls, so noisy!
All the rest—
Quiet as my heart.
INVISIBLE OWLS
I remember our night on the ridge
I had seen a nook some years before
Flat sand and shrubs in broken granite
Right on the crest so I thought I could find it
And you were game for anything
We hiked up in late afternoon
Carrying water in our packs
Up in the shadow of the Crystal Range
Up shattered granite all patched with grasses
Until we stepped back into the light
We found the nook and pitched the tent
Between two gnarly junipers
The sun set in the big valley’s haze
The light leaked out of the sky
We leaned against rock cooking our supper
And in the last electric blue
The richest color in all the world
We jerked at a flash in the air above
And jerked again as out of the night
Black shapes dove at both our heads
In the dark we could barely see them
Their quick dives made no sound at all
Too big for bats too quiet for hawks
We ducked it seemed at an onslaught of owls
Out hunting in a little pack
A strange disjunction of the senses
Wings baffled to damp their noise
So we heard nothing except the stove
Yet saw the steep black strobe approaches
The braking the sharp glides turning away
Then one came close we sensed the talons
I picked up the stove and held it aloft
A Bluet canister with blue flames burning
Bright in the dark blue expanse of space
Beyond it black wings flitting away