Gunfire
Three gunshots in rapid succession killed the silence
of the woods. I froze, reminded in that instant
once again: We are at war. This is the front line.
Dodging nettles, my wife and I had hiked a steep path
to the bottom of the gorge for a closer view
of a wall of columnar basalt across the creek
rising a hundred sheer feet. I must have shrieked.
My wife made no sound. As if shot herself, she dove
in a thicket of wild rose and curled into a ball.
Their thorns, I saw, drew specks of blood
from her bare arms. We’d come down the gorge
to see the thunderbird, our name for the rock form —
columns fanned in a pattern impossible not to imagine
as tail feathers on the lower half, flared wings
higher up the wall, and higher still a great crested head
in the eroded stone. The creek has undercut the wall;
thus, the thunderbird appears to hover in the air
above a pool as if weightless, as if just lifting off.
Somehow we had failed to hear the jeep with its huge
muddied wheels and a tattered Confederate flag
attached to its antenna. How they managed to crash
through the brush to our quiet world
we could not puzzle, the jeep’s engine muffled
by the shush of water washing over stones,
the sigh of light wind in the crowns of pines.
Two young men — bearded, necks and arms tattooed,
their faces marked in army camo — turned to us,
saw my wife cowering in the thicket, then fired
more rounds at the thunderbird, the reports echoing.
I waved my arms. Hey! Please stop! We’re leaving.
The one in a khaki shirt emblazoned with Semper Fi,
his face a mask of black and green stripes,
came over and said without looking at my wife
huddled still in the roses, So what’s her problem?
I said something about us being frightened
by their gunfire, he replying that they’d quit shooting
for a few minutes if we chose to leave. Your call, he said.
I remember the red droplets on my wife’s arm
as we hiked out. She daubed them with a tissue.
Pale, shaken, she said nothing the entire way
to our car. I’m not sure I spoke. I remember
doing what I always do: play back the scene,
wishing I’d said Hey, asshole. How about we stay.
How about you and your buddy climb back in the jeep
and leave. I wanted to tell them, for all the good
it would do, to take their fucking guns and go
fuck themselves. I’d never have said it. They had guns.
What was there to say? How could I explain the majesty
of those black basalt radials patched with orange lichens
or ask them to notice in the seams those nameless
blue flowers clinging impossibly to the sheer wall?
Look there. Can you make out the flared stone wings?
Can you picture the immense body
of some mythic bird sent to us from the sky?
How explain the wonder of ancient lava,
its five-sided columns uplifted in such a way
as to suggest cathedral or, directly before us,
great feathered being? Or on the cliff top
above the hovering thunderbird, could they
not imagine the stand of hemlocks as a solemn
green-robed choir of lonely saints witnessing
our encounter? That day, I said nothing. That day,
I didn’t tell the bearded men what they could do
with their guns. I’ve waited till now to tell them.
I’ve waited till now, for all the good it will do, to explain.