HORSE TRAIL

 

HORSE TRAIL

Out Summitview early to Rocky Top,

clear sky, blue and cold, testing memory.

Schneider Spring Fire smoldering ash.

First time away since Karen’s stroke.

Count to twenty blessings, start over.

Day hike with apple, protein bar, quart

of water—the Yakima to Mt. Rainier,

William O. Douglas Trail—this one,

Horse Trail at Earl Anderson Trailhead.

Listed trail closures, Upper Ha-Ha-Ha,

Tooludu, closed due to erosion.

No shade or water, rattlesnakes and ticks.

Past Walk and Roll, Green Harvester,

my friend, Doug Johnson, poet-painter

named these trails, his reward

for trailblazing the vision.

Shrub-steppe bunch grass, old growth sage,

past Orange Harvester, rural camp art Johnson,

after Anderson Rock & Demolition Pit.

Douglas hiked these shrub-steppe foothills

to strengthen legs weakened by infantile paralysis.

“The desert hills of Yakima had a poverty

that heightened perception.” Scabland,

bunchgrass. Hozho. Cattlegate.                                 

         Kyrie Eleison.

This Blessingway walk, mine,

fenceline Monday. Stick gates

hand-painted, Close gate

to keep cows in. Barbed wire

rust, patina. Farm tools,

old combines, grief and joy,

simultaneous knowing.

Gates that I step over thunder-clear.

This way is the world.

This is the freeway around barbed wire,

rust-red beauty way without razors.

Dangers of blessing it all. Nothing hinders.

Is there any joy that is not wild?

Jim Bodeen

12-13 October 2021