At Seneca Lake
-Bridger Wilderness
Granite fold and fin above
the hypertrophic lake, tent rigged near the ragged shore.
I had the high wilderness all to myself,
or it had me – where grizzlies patrolled an old primacy.
Drowsed in zero down
until nature’s call crescendoed and I stumbled out
to melt a mordant mousehole in the snow.
Not the cold, the night sky slapped me awake.
Blazoned with stars, the distance to them halved,
blooms full as moons, exfoliating bombs – they are –
the Soul in multiples abroad.
Your astral body – ectoplasmic, subtle, silver-blue –
streaked heaven, and mine copied you,
smeared images, star-crossings, separate and the same,
chasing after that lost something –
freedom or connection, both, or more. Greedy hearts!
I thought – you had been
asterisked: abducted in sleep and trafficked here.
But worried mostly that you’d disappear
yanked by a feathery umbilical I couldn’t see.
Why can’t delight be eternal?
a question, or complaint, I took with me – and left us there.
A long time coming down, it seemed:
trailed my own tether back to the hulking Suburban;
UPSed the bear spray to myself;
on the red-eye braced unsteadily to piss
star dust into the stainless bowl
and FLUSH, atomized into anonymizing night.
Swiped photos vainly for a sign
of you – stiff spruce scrub, fractured face, impassive peak.
The stars were pin holes through the port,
a net of minor lights below. Landing, baggage claim. Home.