We tied branches to our helmets.
We painted our faces & rifles
with mud from a riverbank,
blades of grass hung from the pockets
of our tiger suits. We wove
ourselves into the terrain,
content to be a hummingbird’ s target.
We hugged bamboo & leaned
against a breeze off the river,
slow-dragging with ghosts
from Saigon to Bangkok,
with women left in doorways
reaching in from America.
We aimed at dark-hearted songbirds.
We finished clearing the last
Section of trail by noon,
High on the ridge-side
Two thousand feet above the creek
Reached the pass, went on
Beyond the white pine groves,
Granite shoulders, to a small
Green meadow watered by the snow,
Edged with Aspen — sun
Straight high and blazing
But the air was cool.
Ate a cold fried trout in the
Trembling shadows. I spied
I first saw it in the sixties,
driving a Volkswagen camper
with a fierce gay poet and a
lovely but dangerous girl with a husky voice,
we came down from Canada
on the dry east side of the ranges. Grand Coulee, Blue
Mountains, lava flow caves,
the Alvord desert — pronghorn ranges —
and the glittering obsidian-paved
dirt track toward Vya,
seldom-seen roads late September and
thick frost at dawn; then
follow a canyon and suddenly open to
silvery flats that curved over the edge
The sour smell,
blue stain,
water squirts out round the wedge,
Down valley a smoke haze
Three days heat, after five days rain
Pitch glows on the fir-cones
Across rocks and meadows
Swarms of new flies.
I cannot remember things I once read
A few friends, but they are in cities.
Drinking cold snow-water from a tin cup
Looking down for miles
Through high still air.
Out there walking round, looking out for food,
a rootstock, a birdcall, a seed that you can crack
plucking, digging, snaring, snagging,
barely getting by,
no food out there on dusty slopes of scree —
carry some — look for some,
go for a hungry dream.
Deer bone, Dall sheep,
bones hunger home.
Out there somewhere
a shrine for the old ones,
the dust of the old bones,
old songs and tales.
MORNING
You could hike over it, the you
without a problem, its mountain
viewed from the closet
coats are found in, your constant
Yes/No a hee-haw, a mule alert
that’ s pasture-perfect,
a coronary at the last corner.
Nobody’ s framing you for the chintz-
covered wall to cover the leak.
Besides, you like leaks, you’ re inside
the view as if hibernating
or crazy, you try not to erupt.
Hypothesize the rest,
the languor and freshet,
the crags, the serrated parade.
The mountain skies were clear
except for the umlaut of a cloud
over the village.
The little girl wore yellow gloves.
She looked in the peephole and saw
a stack of unused marionettes.
Yet, she wondered.
I
The teacher said inner truth
and the chalk said like a fresco inside the earth
that no one has ever seen
and one day decides to be discovered
and begins to breathe —
do you know what that means?
II
The child broke the chalk.
The mother said be strong.
The child said when I die I want to be a dwarf.
III
