Dog Lake With Paula

Snow air in the wind. It stings our lunch sacks,

arcs the nylon line. Being from the farm

you can take forever in your wild face

the boredom of wind across the boring glare.

On the farm, it’s wheat. Here, water. Same.

Same blinding. Same remorseless drive

of yesterday and dream. A car starts

on the moon and suffocating caves

the mountain lion leaves are castle halls.

This wind is saying things it said at home.

Paula, go upwind to spawn, years across

the always slanted buffalo grass

and centuries past wheels that mill the water.

Deep in the Bear Tooth range the source of wind

is pulsing like your first man in the wheat.

It’s not a source of wisdom. It’s a wise mistake.

The wise result: pain of hungry horses,

howl of wild dogs in the blow. You swim upwind

so hard you have become the zany trees.

Look away when the lake glare hurts. Now,

look back. The float is diving. Deep down,

deeper than the lake, a trout is on the line.

We are, we always were, successful dogs.

Prehistoric beaches burn each dawn for loners.

Listen, Paula. Feel. This wind has traveled

all the way around the world, picked up heat

from the Sahara, a new Tasmanian

method of love, howl of the arctic whale.