such great reuse

airborne on cloudy days

above the blanket hide winter scenes:
powder snow over frozen lakes
mountains hemming distance-dim—

i know this view: i was ten
my father drove the rental up
some summer California mountain;
past the tree line, climbing, climbing
to where the snowcap blocked the road.
we turned around; and there we
among the rumpled bright-iced valleys
discovered an enormous snowy field:
it went on forever, perfect flat.
only after did a map betray the water
hiding there like so much ground.

i’ve seen the universe reuse a face
but never only twice;
so now i’m looking everywhere for the third.

nobody from that mountain trip
survived: not the child playing me,
nor the funny firebrand cast as dad,
my innocent sister, promising cousin:
scattered from that mountain lake like seeds
we sprang from many poison soils—thus.

but airborne on cloudy days
above the blanket hides a forgotten joy:
summer children in unseasonal snow
a happy father, pleased with himself
watches like the mountains distance-dim—

8/04/23