May 6, 2019
This next poem was originally composed in 2012 following a particularly awesome road trip from Yosemite to Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) with my brother in July of that year. In a borrowed car from Dad (Dad believed in buying sedans with plenty of trunk space for picking up people from the airport), we traversed CA, NV, and UT, terminating in Denver, at the Tattered Cover Bookstore (of course).
Despite the many magnificent sights we encountered along the way, the result of choosing backroads over interstates, our mountain-west experience reached its apogee over two afternoons and evenings spent high up in RMNP, in view of the “Never Summer” mountain range. The first evening, in the quiet company of an unobtrusive park ranger, we watched the sunset set fire to clouds gathered over Estes Park, down the valley to the east. The second evening, we watched the sun set over the Never Summer range, and enjoyed the quiet (and completely unbothered by humans) company of elk moving into their evening grazing grounds. Both evenings it was after 9pm before we returned to Estes Park. (Did I mention it was an awesome trip?)
Every year since, Frank and I have marveled how singular and special that 2012 trip was; and I wrote this one poem to best express how it made us (me) feel. I even created a commemorative picture book (using Blurb) from photos taken. [I plan to do the same for last year’s trip as well, interspersed with possible slices from the Blog.]
This poem may strike you as just a long, run-on sentence. Much modern poetry qualifies as such, though as a writer, I am probably not supposed to point that out. Nevertheless, I don’t believe my later work leaves one quite so gasping for breath. (And later work is coming.)
This is likely to be the last poem posted until July, as Tom and I are going on anther road trip, beginning next Tuesday, May 14. More of the southwest is our next destination, after a stop in Omaha to attend a highly anticipated wedding. Stay tuned, as I intend to keep the travelogue going!
At the Top of the World
I sit at the top of this
mountain with my brother,
waiting for dusk to settle —
our bones weary
from thin-aired hikes,
souls weary from witness
at the knee of beauty and light —
but also stunned with happiness
for knowing what tiny
creatures we are, what familial
bonds we share with
our fellow marmots, hustling
among the green-gold rocks
until that final moment
when the last sliver of sun
has sunk behind
mother earth’s rugged profile
and the wind waiting from
wherever it waits suddenly
springs up in a cold surprise,
causing us to huddle more closely,
determined to belong to this landscape
to feel life’s keenly honed edge
that leaves us sanctified, stripped and small
beneath the overspreading blanket
of our own home stars.
Copyright 2019 Martha T. Terrell
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