I Trust You Know the Night

Learning to be alone
is one thing.  The mountains,
the lake beckon with delights--
slight granite  inclines
that you can still
pull through even though you're
50. But the mountain is
lying to you.
As much as you're
lying to your self.  For
the peak you aim for
you climbed.  Long
ago when water
actually ran and some
Cottonwoods survived
to give shade where
the desert ended and the
pines began, where the beargrass
stood tall in gray fields
lazy in the wind.  Their
whisper is your key, your
song.  Like the slight
bells ringing in night
air beyond your home.

It is the sound of being
alone.  A good quiet
in the high hills while
friends below sit
in the city air--I've opened
a door somewhere.  In a rock,
in granite a billion years old.
up here.  Sunshine streaming
on the tips of the high hills.

At home I await the deep sleep
of the suburbs.  The quiet
streets at two in the morning
are straight and hard like rails.  The houses,
dark and sleeping too.
I can wander like Ulysses
on the islands of grass,
walkways where
there are no sounds
in early November. Smoke
rising from chimneys.
Piñon somewhere burning.