Two Landscapes
Anne Waldman and Andrew Schelling
MONTANE
There is a mountain in the distant West
That, sun-defying, in its deep ravines
Displays a cross of snow upon its side.
Such is the cross I wear upon my breast …
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Past crumbled miner shack on quick return
to mineral earth
Shadow Canyon
one ornamental plum hosts in full lacy bloom
a riot of lavender petals
Might have been torn from a page of Buson
deserves anyhow
a moment’s gratitude
or why some mountain yogin piled a three-stone cairn
kuhara-shila-samshraya
“shelters in caves and hollow rock”
to smoky voice wilderness goddess
Mist whorling through limestone crags her breath
hawklike venery her sport
(Bear Peak summit
2:50 PM blowing fog)
When religion departs from the raptor’s wing …
what is lost?
Eagle & peregrine falcon aloft
the poet is brooding about editors—
Which is to say
glad you got here before me
dear salt dark feather granite peaks
*
Spine’s a cordillera of pleasure
lady’s curve could be mantilla,
mons veneris might be trobairitz
leaves old Nueva York coast—
“the poet is brooding about editors” (Buson)
Would be ravenous, numinous or
just plain seeing things then
come ’round to humble trail, a trial
or perhaps a jest got jagged boot up an edge
Points are obstacles or holy mood?
Dakini breast, demon-pricks, wounds of a saint
a troubling rood to contemplate
Free Tibet negative-ioned out
salutes her peaked ally
as next century pops up, beams
happy not to be beachfront
Above the trees tundratic you come to breathe
& it is a woman’s pride
dark perpetuity (don’t fence me in)
or bright exposure animals—marmots, pica—course
shy runs of
dusted with snow & named
(& here ensues a list of mountains):
Pike’s Peak | 100 miles | (14,110) |
Mt. Evans | 30 miles | (14,260) |
Quandary Peak | 38 miles | (14,256) |
Mt. Massive | 76 miles | (14,404) |
Mt. of the Holy Cross | 60 miles | (13,978) |
Jasper Peak | 2 miles | (12,940) |
Dimensions from bronze sighting plaque,
South Arapahoe Peak (13,348)
NOTE: Thomas Moran painted Mount of the Holy Cross a number of times and enterprising photographers popularized it. Longfellow knew these images. In 1879, without having seen the Colorado peak, he wrote “The Cross of Snow.” The cross is comprised of two transecting ravines high on the SE face which fill with snow and present a cruxiform image most of the year. Early Xtian travelers saw it and went crazy.
RIPARIAN
Basho dogs us here
albeit “Pets
Not Aloud”
and five miles down
the grocery store has frozen pizza
The St. Vrain roars
chortles and roars
past the billboard advertising
smoked trout
Are there trout in there?
“Fan”
the St. Vrain speaks
“oven”
daylight valley walls of burst
granite
ponderosa pine
but by night …
sentimental curtains with
pussycats
at the windows
All over Colorado
into alpine lakes and cold rivers
trout rain from helicopters
Every spring they dump them from helicopters,
and what senator speaks for the trout?
Who was St. Vrain?
Consult High Country Names
Louisa Ward Arps & Elinor Eppich Kingery—
what was Cache la Poudre?
What were the French up to?
1848 keeping their
powder dry
Eagle Canyon
Clap trap houses displace the eagle
dislocation
driving through subdivisions
named for what they displace
Golden Eagle where is thy eye
(and vanishing)
Bald Eagle thy claw?
(prospering, replete with road kill)
Who dwelleth yet in Eagle Canyon—?
wise philosophers
knotted
should we say
twisted
the
ways
of
this
road
staked out
You think watching a small tv
the same as listening to
quiet music?
or a book with fine print?
Gold Light
I’d get up and turn off that fan if I could
—I will
turn off the refrigerator if I could
—not sure I can do that
crab apples are ornamental
and St. Vrain is not a Christian holiday?
Bring back Basho & temper the
lane, the light, her dawn
Basho hears a horse piss near his head
Basho sees a dream waver on the autumn field
Basho gives his youth to homosexual love
Basho shaves his head
Basho builds a hut and assumes a pen name
Basho takes on students
Basho hates the poetry scene
The capital Edo is like New York
He comes to loathe it
flees it in riparian
twist & turn
—I am not a poet of Edo
—Not a New York School poet
—We are not poets with any name exactly
though half of us is a New York School poet
—I am not a New York School poet
—You are when you collaborate that half
—Collaboration was not invented in New York
nor in Edo
—I missed a beat O yes & proud of it
Bring back the golden eagle of five syllables
*
Dusk by the creek
this is a little haiku—
the rabbit
eyes the idling
Subaru
add another haiku—
What loneliness
the rabbit
eyes the newly arrived Honda
Can’t get a word in edgewise, ceded to river
and another—
Move your fingers
and count syllables
the old man
*
Catch us if you can
blue & red in the rocky mountain
slant light / sun set
Waiting for you in a swing by the St. Vrain
what I always knew poetry could do
shoring up for the millennium
so many thousands before us
doing the same with their broken syllables
“tremble”
the river it’s the river
I’m just going to walk over to it