(hitch 1)
bounding up the elkhorn crest trail. I pulled a dead mosquito from the end of one of my braids. i know our paths will cross again. oh i've sang so many songs
to myself + the saxifrage, through some mountain pass
and the chipmunk at home in a field of granite
buttercup, marigold, and sandwort like lace over dirt. now the lake is dark and peepers cry to the wilderness
hailstorm in the wallowas
i saw it coming in the distance, rain coming down over the hills. the conceit in me thought the clouds wouldn't make it to the ridge. but the undeniable signs of a storm appeared as i bent over some tread--the eerie wind, the foreboding clouds. ethan and I crouched beneath some low-growing spruce as it came. it turned to hail, we waited among the trees, i hoped the crosscut saw would stay dry, then the precipitation dissipated.
everything dries eventually. i got up from my cowering stance, chilled to the bone, and my work pants and gloves were soaked. i threw my wet pack on, took up my tools with my rain-wrinkled fingers and went forth out onto the ridge, where sunlight shone once more promising an end to this discomfort. my calves pulse, i warm up. i stop to piss along the trail and find silky phacelia (uncommon!) growing among the rocks.
hellebore & heaven-sent, sun-slung n far-flung
(interlude) (lisa gave me a day off from the crew)
yeah. last night i was at morgan lake, i stayed up reading the book taylor sent me from colorado, which we found back in the pisgah and i'd forgotten she'd swore to mail it to me once she finished. and the sunset and serviceberry bush brought me back to the blackbirds.
the evening, this evening that was all mine, the loneliness I took for granted back in the south. just me and a super duty.
i miss upstate sc
(hitch 2)
i pull a tick from the nape of my neck. i peer down into a scree-filled valley. my footsoles swell crack then peel along topographical looking lines. in my hammock i hear a baby goat cryin' up on a ledge. i saw one up there silhouetted against the colors of the sunset.
i got my crosscut B (bucking only) cert today. pulling teeth through a rotted belly--out crawled the ants from the punk.
the crumbling cliffside beneath a whitebark's shade is where I take my lunch break. our camp upon the lakeshore: sandwort amongst gravel amongst little boulders. a dark sheet of water pierced here and there by some ripling--the fish the osprey hunt for in their dramatic diving.
and then the sky was more blue than pink, and night fell.
woman waiting
it was a strange feeling i had gazing out at those blue mountains, stacks of them piled up on the horizon, wondering when fielding would breeze by us on the trail. I'd known for a couple weeks that we would run into each other on the elkhorn crest. What a coincidence, that my crew would be assigned to a project along the trail he was thru-hiking.
in the still moments i felt like a woman gazing out upon the plains during wartime not yet knowing she is a widow. I throw spadefuls of dirt down the cliffs, pause momentarily in the high-altitude heat, chewing on the sense of wild connectivity. Through this short span of just over a year that I’ve worked in conservation this nation has become a neighborhood. This trail is a hallway where i bump shoulders with those i shared a season of my life with. As I scrape slough the trail is a forum for my thoughts as they dig their heels into the past then flit to the possibilities of the future, bounding into the territory of daydreams.
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