Stonepine Snag, Little Eagle Meadows

FIRST FIRE

Burning candle, match lit, a solitary flame
passed on to a handful of dry pine.

Is there really this or that fire?
Or is there just f i r e?
a source ever-present.

Smell of smoke, pinched eyes, ears cracked
open as the primal flame bursts into awareness.

Deep within, the body moves to the music
sung to the sun-god
brought down
to earth.

OF CARS & BOOTS

My friends who own cars
tell me they can be in the high
country in but half a day.

No car, just a pack and a pair
of old boots, but I say I stay—
in the mountains.

FIRE STARTER

When short of kindling,
I must confess, the first thing to go
is the literary journals;

Then the guide books, and
only very reluctantly the dictionary
and then the maps.

But my notebook? Well, if it must,
that too. But blank pages first,
or those scribbled with numbers and poems?
Now, it’s getting cold, I’m alone,
and I’m of two minds. Think of that.

| The three little highcountry poems are a part of my ON PATHS |