Memory

Walking along Dead Horse Creek, we
saw our footprints bubble into absence
behind us as mud filled them.
Scratched our way along cottonwoods,
alders, branches snapping back
into position as we passed. You
are telling me about your divorce,
being removed from the landscape
of your own life. Childrens' toys gone
in the same van as crucifixes, clothing, old
sports trophies, forgotten until they
had to be moved. Now,
here is what we have come to see!
A burst of mountain goats, down 
from the North Cascades, forced
to the lowlands by snow swaddling
Sauk Mountain. White, they bob
along the ridge above us, flanks
mottled a dishwater grey. (Remember
reading how their hairs weave 
into winter snowshoes for those hooves -
then relent). To think out of 10,000
these are now part of just 100. You joke 
about your elk gun, that thirty years ago you
could shoot anything that moved, 
kill anything is what you mean.
A pressure change and they are gone 
Into the white fog, a burial shroud 
For the old gods. 
We stand awhile,
And then walk on.  


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