Upstate NY...
The Adirondacks are burning,
tree by fur tree and every fine and quaint thing nestled in
the crooks and crannies of those picturesque mountains,
a fiery river of boiling syrup singes the tourist towns
filled to the brim with
wood carving dads,
antique moms,
and slender high school daughters with tanned skin and overly
attractive legs and breasts,
homely families who flood these valleys when the
cities begin to swelter in the summer time,
abandoning their concrete caverns filled with
designer sofas and marble table tops and sleek hardware,
a still and silent tomb awaiting the return of life in the fall,
Andy keeps pace at his tavern,
what pace there is where most nights black bears outnumber drinkers,
but where camaraderie is as forthcoming as the uncountable
stars displayed by the Milky Way above,
we drink whiskey shots with our bearded river guide,
a veritable Zeus on the rapids of the upper Hudson,
swap stories with middle-aged motorcyclists down from
the white-washed world of Connecticut,
roll grass with our friends in a bunkhouse whose cedar walls
once kept cool the town’s only ice,
Irritating black flies assemble in anger against our bare legs,
the trail is demanding enough,
over-crowded pines and downed trees left uncut to trouble our ascent,
we scramble over boulders and across boot-sucking bogs,
as many natural barricades as a path can possess,
up the spindly back bone of a temperamental Mt. Marcy,
playing hard-to-get with each new hidden deterrent beneath her
swaying skirt,
the highest point in New York,
until the trees become shrubs and the shrubs only rock,
and there is no point higher to place your next step,
lonely mountain steward overseeing these heights,
awaiting our turn to ask questions,
only there is nothing to ask,
just the immense conundrum of such stunning beauty as
fading green peaks disappear into the distance,
and all of it is on fire,
the whole world is burning.
7.2010
tree by fur tree and every fine and quaint thing nestled in
the crooks and crannies of those picturesque mountains,
a fiery river of boiling syrup singes the tourist towns
filled to the brim with
wood carving dads,
antique moms,
and slender high school daughters with tanned skin and overly
attractive legs and breasts,
homely families who flood these valleys when the
cities begin to swelter in the summer time,
abandoning their concrete caverns filled with
designer sofas and marble table tops and sleek hardware,
a still and silent tomb awaiting the return of life in the fall,
Andy keeps pace at his tavern,
what pace there is where most nights black bears outnumber drinkers,
but where camaraderie is as forthcoming as the uncountable
stars displayed by the Milky Way above,
we drink whiskey shots with our bearded river guide,
a veritable Zeus on the rapids of the upper Hudson,
swap stories with middle-aged motorcyclists down from
the white-washed world of Connecticut,
roll grass with our friends in a bunkhouse whose cedar walls
once kept cool the town’s only ice,
Irritating black flies assemble in anger against our bare legs,
the trail is demanding enough,
over-crowded pines and downed trees left uncut to trouble our ascent,
we scramble over boulders and across boot-sucking bogs,
as many natural barricades as a path can possess,
up the spindly back bone of a temperamental Mt. Marcy,
playing hard-to-get with each new hidden deterrent beneath her
swaying skirt,
the highest point in New York,
until the trees become shrubs and the shrubs only rock,
and there is no point higher to place your next step,
lonely mountain steward overseeing these heights,
awaiting our turn to ask questions,
only there is nothing to ask,
just the immense conundrum of such stunning beauty as
fading green peaks disappear into the distance,
and all of it is on fire,
the whole world is burning.
7.2010
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