Читать книгу Where the Sky Opens - Laurie Klein - Страница 14
She Calls Him Dreamer
ОглавлениеThey 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.