One other New Hampshire poem.
This one is called "Mount Kearsarge."
How embarrassing to read a mountain poem
when you're here, in Arizona, because those aren't mountains,
compared to these mountains.
But, Mount Kearsarge, the farm up
there is surrounded by hills.
But there are some hills that have it and some that don't.
Mount Kearsarge is the one that has the god to it.
My grandmother's been there 92 years, in the same house.
Every morning, for virtually 92 years,
she's gotten up and looked out the window
and said, mountain's real pretty today,
or, can't see the mountain too good today.
Because of the mist and the fog.
But it really has that incredible presence.
From the porch of the farmhouse where I watched you
all summer as a boy, steep sides,
narrow flat patch on top.
You are clear to me, like the memory of one day.
Blue.
The top of the mountain floats in haze.
I will not rock on this porch when I am old.
I turn my back on you, Kearsarge.
I close my eyes, and you rise inside me, blue ghost.