WEBVTT

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OK, now I'm going to share
a few poems with you.

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I live at 4,000 feet
in the Bitterroot

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Mountains of Montana.

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And the place where I
live, you can walk out

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the door-- it backs up
against the Selway-Bitterroot

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Wilderness area, and you can
walk to Idaho without seeing

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another human being.

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Unfortunately, we were just
discovered by developers,

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and we're in a lawsuit.

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But we're hoping that
it stays that way

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because what we were hoping,
is that we could leave

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that land in public trust.

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But right now, we were told
that we cannot even put

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a conservation easement on it
because we're in what's called

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the developer's
nightmare sandwich.

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But this was written about this
time of year in that place.

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Foxfire, Foxfire being
that blue light given off

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by decaying vegetation
and hopefully not

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a strained metaphor for the mind
feeding on what comes before.

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"Foxfire."

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Once, I thought we
would know everything.

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That's what this was for, this
foxfire, this fragrant energy,

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like nighthawks
screaming at dusk.

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All winter, I stalked
elk that were down

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from the mountain and starving.

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I walked the low places where
they galloped through slush,

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the rocks where they wallowed
and pawed for new grasses,

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the tooth marks on aspen, the
mineral lick, the creek where

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the water was roiled, milky.

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I sweated through immovable
snow, fell down exhausted,

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but when I imagined I'd stand
in a thicket, my eyes glazed

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over my sharp breath and know
the hot communion of elk,

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I was wrong.

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Once I thought we were
all gods, blessed,

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strutting this lovely planet.

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The Earth was a minor
passing, like the path down

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to our ditch for water,
pretty with serviceberry,

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but transient.

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As a young girl, I swung
upside down with other girls

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as we hung by our
heels from a jungle

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gym and contemplated heaven.

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It was a silky place.

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I preferred
purgatory, retrievers

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curled about the table legs
and the warm abraded doors.

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At 38, I'm still the
babe of my family.

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Once I thought they
would teach me,

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that even their last
breath would be a key,

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but now I see them drifting
off from their easy chairs,

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like a tribe leaving shore
together, the television

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blaring, their
mouths sagged open,

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and when they return
for brief moments,

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they stare at me as
if I were a stranger.

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All that I will ever
know is right here

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in the wash and till
of these few acres.

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Frost tonight and behind it,
the whole summer so brief

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I can still see the
bronco-face calf

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born to the bloody pasture
and the brown trout suspended

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in its first glittering
insect hatch.

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There will never be
more than twilight,

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a valley receding to glass.

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In this tiny paradise
of common flowers,

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the waist-high marigolds
blaze up like golden dowagers.

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Venus rises alone, early
to a cold black sky.

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