— for Paul
 

The only words that exist here
are mine. Well, mine and Paul’s,
who carved his name and a date
twelve years ago in this log
by the fire ring. Let me revise:
the only words that are spoken here
are mine, though they are infrequent.

Unless I am mistaken, all I’ve said
aloud today is “Good morning”
to a cedar waxwing, and “Thank you”
to the wind, for blowing the horde
of mosquitoes away for a while.
Also “Shit,” when I dropped my spoon
in the dirt at breakfast this morning.

At the top of the peak I walked up
earlier, I said “Yes,” peculiarly affirming
the sweat and rigor of the walk. Also the view.
On the way down, entering the trees again,
I saw a bear’s excavation at the base
of a slope of scree and started singing,
for some reason, “When I’m Sixty-Four.”

Because I love places without people,
some people conclude I do not love them.
That I prefer the company of trees.
But by tomorrow, the third day of near wordlessness,
I will be a garrulous fool, addressing the lake
and greeting a single small, white cloud
like an old and very dear friend passing through.

That night I’ll speak my praise to the fire
and say a few poems by heart to the dark.
Then, as the flames begin to settle to coals,
I’ll speak to Paul himself, almost as though
he were here with me, and promise him,
though I disapprove of what he has done,
that I’ll get his name, at least, into a poem.

Very early gray-lit morning. I’m shivering
in my boxers, barefoot in sparse high country grass,
pissing, when I see on the lake’s opposite shore,
a solitary wolf, making its way wherever it is
it’s going, half an hour or so before sunrise.
It may be that it senses my shivering before it sees me,
or hears the spatter of my piss, but now there is no doubt
I am something it would rather not see nor especially be seen by.
It picks up its pace and moves back into the trees.
It stops now and then to be sure I haven’t moved,
then at last breaks into an actual run, and disappears
among boulders along an ancient glacier’s terminal moraine.
I do not ordinarily rise so early to relieve myself,
but through the tent flap I could see mist rising
from the cold surface of the lake, still
and dimpled everywhere by feeding trout.
They were feeding, and still are, on mosquitoes,
which are now everywhere on me and likewise feeding,
but I’m still standing here, shivering, knowing
when the sun comes out it will awaken the wind,
and the wind will ruck the surface of the water
to a thousand tiny, soundless waves, and knowing also
that if I stay where I am, motionless, I might yet see
the wolf again, though I do not, and at last
I do a kind of spasmodic dance to shake away
the mosquitoes, and head back to my tent,
when I note, along the way, the massive canine tracks
of a wolf all around the fire ring, all across
the worn campsite ground to within no more
than a foot from the head of my tent
and around the tents of my still-sleeping compatriots too,
which I will point out to them when they awaken,
after I’ve put on my clothes and built the morning fire,
after I’ve lowered the food bags from the tree limb
we hoisted them to last night, and brewed
a pot of coffee, and sat myself on rock,
and slathered bug dope abundantly over
all my exposed flesh, as I wait for the sun to rise,
for the wind to roughen the surface of the lake,
for them to join me here, where I will point out the tracks
and tell them, in great detail, what it is I have seen.