I walk without a
dog.
The mountain makes its own day
from aspen leaves.
Wild irises are called blue flags.
That is written in a book.
A mule deer holds
an altar of silence on his antlers.
Each pine is
braced with light,
called back from the plunge
of hours without clocks.
Over and over again
I forget to notice.
Everything takes
longer than I thought.
I used to know what they called
the bird that runs down
the lodgepole trunks.
She says her own name:
a bracelet of whistles.
Someone tried to take it down in a memo.
Higher now.
Polemonium grows only above 9000 feet.
I kneel and smell
the sweet stench.
Its other name is Sky Pilot.
All of a sudden nothing happens.
I put my face into its face.