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Posts Tagged ‘yosemite’

What Holds Things Together

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 21, 2023| 10 Comments »



            for Karen, Lindsay, Sarah, and the other Rangers and Volunteers in Tuolomne Meadows
 
 
Marcelo says he’s interested in fasteners,
in nails. He likes thinking about how things
hold together. He’s a carpenter and a poet,
and it follows, his fascination with structure.
Because I am me, I think about love.
I think of the ranger station I saw at Yosemite,
the roof collapsed by heavy snows. I think
of the heap of picnic tables I saw,
metal legs twisted like pipe cleaners,
unable to hold up the weight of long winter.
Things fall apart. And yet.
I think of the rangers who love this place,
who return every year to shovel, to teach,
to clean, to rebuild, to organize, to guide—
their devotion essential as any screws,
as any glue, as mighty as high alpine weather.
Love, the force resilient enough
as the world falls apart
to hold what’s been broken together.

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The Day Before the Hurricane

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on August 21, 2023| 4 Comments »



            Tuolomne Meadows, Yosemite
 
 
The meadow is a vast embrace for light
and does not prepare for predicted rain.
White slabs of granite gather warmth
in their mass with no thought
of storm, and for a sun-drunk moment,
unshackled from purpose,
I’m undone from myself,
more becoming, less someone,
less trajectory, more field,
more attention to cinquefoil, dragonfly,
thin sweetness of mountain air.
In loving the world that is, I am exactly here
Buzz of fly. Beat of heart. Path of ant.
Beat of heart. Dry needles. Dry moss.
Beat of heart. Beat of heart.
Sage. Beat of heart. Stone. Beat
of heart. Deep spring. Tall pine.
Beat of heart. Beat of heart.
 
 

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One Way to See One of the Most Beautiful Places in the World

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 21, 2023| 2 Comments »


 
 
The rental car headlights shine
on parallel white and yellow lines
as they curve and hairpin
and scale and wind
through moonless forests
and unlit glades. Beyond them,
I feel what I cannot see—
abysses that yawn beyond vision—
and I climb, and I climb,
I cling to my lines. I attend
the soft hymns of my daughter’s breath,
my husband’s breath.
Somewhere out there, a great
granite dome. Somewhere
out there, a meadow
with bubbling soda springs.
Somewhere, a valley
with hundreds of thousands of gallons
of clear water pluming and pouring,
a glorious roaring.
For hours, we twist through
invisible cliffs, my eyes trained
to the pavement before us.
Sometimes, a pinecone.
Sometimes, a branch. Sometimes,
a white flash of headlights.
I follow the lines as they turn,
as they swerve. We arrive
at a small room across the pass
with only the beauty we are.


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