Wild Spring Mountain Snowmelt, Eagle Cap Wilderness & NIGHT WATCH

NIGHT WATCH

Flash goes the lightning.
In the tent, the air is calm
and the candle’s flame is motionless.

Flash goes the lightning.
Outside the tent, the terrifying
sound of huge boulders swept away
by a river rising fast.

Flash goes the lightning.
In the tent, the air is calm
and the candle’s flame is motionless.

Cafés

(1)

Opening the door of the café, I see
that it is empty.

Walking into the room, the wooden
floor creaks like frozen snow under
mountain moonlight.

The windows are closed.
In a corner is perched a stuffed
golden eagle, wings spread
out the length of a man, with a lamb
clutched in its talons. Both claws
and beak painted a yellow
brighter than life.

I ring a bell at a table, which
is promptly answered by sounds
coming from a speaker on a wall
opposite the lamb and the eagle.

The music piped in is stranger
than life, electric instruments,
electric recording, electric speaker...

A shaft of sunlight peaks through
a window, hitting first the table,
then a hand-carved cross of stone pine
just behind me, above my head.

Still, there’s no one in the room.
Time enough to ponder the things
we put up on walls . . .

(2)

When one returns to a café,
even after many years, one
tends to sit at the same table.

Who says repetition
is such a bad thing?

(3)

The waitress looks at the stranger,
seeing his pack, wishing
she could walk off with him.

The man looks at the waitress
and sees suddenly in himself
a more responsible side—
a master of small talk,
of mixed salads, of a
home where the door’s left
open even when it rains.

(URNERLAND, The Alps,
from ON PATHS)