Dolly Sods -- Rite
of Passage
I first saw Bear Rocks while dragging
myself
From my sleeping bag into the gray
dawn,
My modest hangover equal parts cool
air, beer, and campfire smoke,
My body shivering in the chill prevailing
wind.
The brittle red-leafed bushes, the
lop-sided pines,
And the lichen scarred white rocks
Were the stuff of a different universe,
Not my home of soft, green hills.
Just a camping trip --- the first
of many;
The one with Roy laying in the back
of David's green 1957 Suburban
Chugging beer, then falling face-first
into the firewood,
A saving foot behind the stroke
of David's axe.
And David backing his truck into
the rocks
Jutting from the mountainside, smashing
his left taillight,
Before we reached Bear Rocks past
twilight, lit our cooking fire,
And killed it with spilled water
-- cooking spaghetti on a mountaintop.
Roy lay in the truck, passed out,
While Jim explained the virtues
of "Sacco-Vanzetti"
-- "Anarchist Spaghetti" -- spaghetti
with catsup
Which he and Houch professed to
love.
Lying awake in my sleeping bag in
the clear air of the mountains,
I saw more stars than I had dreamed
visible from Earth.
Then came clouds and sleep
And the shock of morning in the
wispy mountain fog.
David and I hiked idly to the edge
of the plateau, gazed east,
Touching distant horizons; avoiding
the breakfast fare (more "Sacco-Vanzetti").
Roy awoke, green as David's truck,
vomited,
And chameleon-like, took on the
gray hue of the dawn.
There's little more to tell: just
David cursing himself
For the dent in his Suburban; and
me somehow mistaking
The music of the spheres and the
misty gray of dawn
For something within my mundane
grasp.
11-19-99
