THE MOUNTAIN IS ERASED BY CLOUD
the mountain is erased by cloud, everytime I look up to the rockies it drops open and then ice gets in, my mouth is shut, avalanche areas do not stop they are covered, by the thickest, tallest and tiniest pine, the snow at rest on the branches demanded silence, snow disappearing into the clouds taking the summit with it, clumps of ice on branches like cotton balls, strong lines of needles holding up the snow, follow the strong lines of the snow plough through the snow, the snow was all fluffy but it was as cold as ice, it depends on its moisture contents, when it's got moisture in it, it's easier to pack into snow balls, these two guys went hunting and they chased an coyote into the ground with snow mobiles then run over it, then they shot an elk, then they were attacked by three grizzlies and died, because they had put the guns down over by same tree where the dead elk lay, and the bears got between them and the guns, the brothers were both killed, silence works its way across the unprotected points of your skin, and cuts a direct line into your bones, snow shudders and creeks down the sides of the rooves, there are warnings about the drop and sharp tip of six foot icicles, sliding in falling shelves, like human lives erased by clouds, and compacted ice, there's alot of it packed in the icefields, advancing and receding, the fields that the tourists go on, Columbia icefields, they clamper across, it's like a toe on the foot of the icefields, glacier observing, filled with warning, avalanche guns are fired, the root strata frosting, yellow and green, beneath the snowline, a bald eagle built its nest in the highest forked branch of an old dead tree, and the Canada goose that normally builds on the ground level built beside her, the coach driver said, 'the first step down for those baby geese must have been a doozy,' I am desperate to get my hands on the river stones, slowly fondling and the wind howling and like a salmon migrating, I look back out the window, the same lake, the same mountain summit, the air is thick with snow, |
