Movement

Hiking at Glacier
Turning mountain trail corners blindly
Waiting for the bear
While banging my bell,

I came upon a slide

Of earth, rock, branches
And a puzzle of broken trees,
Splayed out in an eruptive flow
A scared swath down the mountain side
Opening a vein
And allowing a view
Of Lake McDonald far below
Looking like a puddle
Cupped in the mountain’s maw
A sapphire oval
With an island dotting the center
Sailing steamboat-like
On its never-ending journey north.

I stared and studied
Wondering and reconstructing
The moment and the movement.
Perhaps a burden of snow
Loosed a rock
Or time tumbled a spruce?
There was an instance
Of initiation
And wondering I wagered
That it all went
From the long pause of potential
To a wild explosion of kinetic.
And if I had been standing there…
Well I wouldn’t be standing here.

I could see the continuation
Of the trail to the opposite side.
And I puzzled again
For some uncertain time of
Venturing across
Stepping into the precarious
And perhaps being swept up
Into this mystery.

I wondered if there were skeletons

Entombed below
And if mine would ever be found
Marked only by detritus
On its downward journey.

Would my path forward
Be a solid safe concretion,

Or one loosely laid out before me?

Such  fates are  likely known only to

Mountain gods.

October is

October is a month for cheating fate.
Each year I pull ‘round the corner of summer
Running on empty
And somehow it tops off my tank.
Once again.
It works every year, so far…
Thanks mom and dad for my birth on these days
Although I’m not sure that’s what you had in mind
In the back seat of the Plymouth that New Year’s eve
When I was conceived.
Or when you bought me a little two-wheeler
With those outrigger training wheels on back
(That never really did anything)
I was launched down a bumpy, rocky driveway
(Aren’t we all?)
And have the scars on my aged knees
To prove, as tickets punched that
I took that journey.
~
Men sometimes play baseball late into October
By great lakes,
Those heroes…
If (and when) the wind blows from the cold creeping north
Snow may just fly along with the balls in the outfields
Still summer green
Even the umpires know this is cheating.
~
In maple lined backyards
Slumping piles of leaves are secretly moldering
Even before the rake is in the shed,
Only the worms are coolly pleased,
And the pumpkin on the stoop
Is destined to burst into that curious
Probable puddle of slime,
Embarrassed by its unfortunate smell.
We often cut short its time
By allowing children to gouge eyes and devil’s grins
Which spews its belly of goop and seeds.
~
It’s the rank ripeness of slumping gardens
And childhood adventures,
With only the tease of memory and time,
That fuel us into these darkening days.