Читать книгу Where the Sky Opens - Laurie Klein - Страница 14

They both sign up for “Reading the Land.”

He is the summit she fails to map,

a soul built for switchbacks, a seeker

of wind-shaved stone. He straddles

the ridge, beckoning.

She’s his Wild Beauty,

but also answers to Bean, a Great Plains girl,

calm as horizon, a hill unmade.

Sometimes she thinks his veins churn

with glacial silt, clouding his gaze.

“Piece of cake,” he calls.

Stalling

over red laces, extra-long, she criss-crosses

the loose ends on her shins like a dancer,

hoists her frameless Day-Glo-orange pack,

sagging beneath the old Dacron bag,

strapped on,

tight as a budget.

Eerie sounds drown out Dreamer’s instructions.

Bean slow-pivots the compass points. Upwelling

water re-lacquers the lake’s face, new ice

flexing against older layers, a moan,

as if a girl were

trapped beneath.

A dirt-brown bird with fidgets cracks its joke,

like a cocklebur. Eyeing the heights,

she ponders a dozen ways to leave,

cradles a she-cone, each small wing

hopeful as any waving hand.