BLAZES

Pine sap leaking from blazes leading
straight off a mountain of trees—
McKee’s cutoff from Bench Lake
to the South Fork of the Kings—
like the laments of old men
living longer than they planned.

There is nothing else to tell
the future, its time-saving
complications, its instant speed,
its youthful dreams headlong
into possibilities I’ll not know.
We led our horses down

the steep north slope, following
my father to this point in time.
All-night thunderstorm at Marion Lake,
huge rainbows, then over Cartridge
to Simpson Meadow dressed
in colored tube tents—Sierra Club, 1958.

Dad, Cut and Don—all gone,
I may have had the best of times
with them: places where there is
damn-little trail to follow,
but only lately taking time
to leave blazes of my own.