Down to grass, wading a wide smooth stream

Into camp. At last.

By the rusty three-year-

Ago left-behind cookstove

Of the old trail crew,

Stoppt and swam and ate my lunch.

FIRE IN THE HOLE

Squatting a day in the sun,

one hand turning the steeldrill,

one, swinging the four pound singlejack hammer

down.

three inches an hour

granite bullhump boulder

square in the trail.

above, the cliffs,

of Piute Mountain waver,

sweat trickles down my back.

why does this day keep coming into mind,

a job in the rock hills

aching arms

the muletracks

arching blinding sky,

noon sleep under

snake-scale juniper limbs.

that the mind

entered the tip of steel,

the arm fell

like breath,

the valley, reeling,

on the pivot of that drill—

twelve inches deep we packed the charge

dynamite on mules

like frankincense.

Fire in the hole!

Fire in the hole!

Fire in the hole!

jammed the plunger down,

thru dust

and sprinkling stone

strolld back to see:

hands and arms and shoulders

free.

BURNING THE SMALL DEAD

Burning the small dead

branches

broke from beneath

thick spreading

whitebark pine.

a hundred summers

snowmelt       rock       and air

hiss in a twisted bough.

sierra granite;

mt. Ritter—

black rock twice as old.

Deneb, Altair

windy fire

TRAIL CREW CAMP AT BEAR VALLEY, 9000 FEET. NORTHERN SIERRA—WHITE BONE AND THREADS OF SNOWMELT WATER

Cut branches back for a day—

trail a thin line through willow

up buckbrush meadows,

creekbed for twenty yards

winding in boulders

zigzags the hill

into timber, white pine.

gooseberry bush on the turns,

hooves clang on the riprap

dust, brush, branches,

a stone

cairn at the pass—

strippt mountains hundreds of miles.

sundown went back

the clean switchbacks to camp,

bell on the gelding,

stew in the cook tent,

black coffee in a big tin can.

HOME FROM THE SIERRA

Woke once in the night, pissed,

checkt the coming winter’s stars

built up the fire

still glowing in the chilly dawn.

Washing the mush pot in the lake

frost on the horse turds

a grayjay cased the camp.

All morning walking to the car

load up on granite stone,

seedling sugar pine.

Down to hot plains.

Mexicans on flatcars in the San Joaquin.

cool fog

smell of straw mats

cup of green tea

by the Bay.

FOXTAIL PINE

bark smells like pineapple: Jeffries

cones prick your hand: Ponderosa

nobody knows what they are, saying

“needles three to a bunch.”

turpentine tin can hangers

high lead riggers

“the true fir cone stands straight,

the doug fir cone hangs down.”

—wild pigs eat acorns in those hills

cascara cutters

tanbark oak bark gatherers

myrtlewood burl bowl-makers

little cedar dolls,

baby girl born from the split crotch

of a plum

daughter of the moon—

foxtail pine with a

clipped curve-back cluster of tight

five-needle bunches

the rough red bark scale

and jigsaw pieces sloughed off

scattered on the ground.

—what am I doing saying “foxtail pine”?

these conifers whose home was ice