Evening, Red Mountain, view from Muir Lake (Crater Lake), Eagle Cap Wilderness
On the road in the Northwest of America.

If my photos aren't any good, I always say to myself, I'm not living
out enough, not exposed enough to the rough and ready formative forces
of the alpine world. Like the great war photographer Robert Capa used to say,
[...] "you're not close enough." It is true, I think.

it is also true that all good things must end. Including the week after
week of the clear blue skies of high pressure Wallowa summer.

Here is a little set of three 37-step poems which dances around this theme
of the sudden arrival of autumn weather in mountain August. In order for
a variation form like this to really flower, one needs to do them in sets or
sequences. Try reading them out-loud to get a sense of how the rhythms
and accents change in surprising ways while still keeping to the basic
37-step pattern:

After Fall Storm in High Mountain Summer

(I)

Fast, flowing clouds stream
over constant red rock mountain,
stonepines give voice to cold winds, sun

peaks through, new

day so late in the afternoon. the
nutcrackers will not fly today.

(II)

The lightning bolt strikes
the stonepine, as it bursts apart
in a flash of flames. ancient tree

on solid

rock. science can't say
which tree will be the next to go.

(III)

One prays for sun, puts
up with rain. every zipper in
the tent is broke. a chipmunk gives

a sermon

on cheerfulness:—the
nutcrackers will not fly today.

Camp Lost & Found,
Eagle Cap Wilderness,
Oregon, VIII.17.2008

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