TOURIST

Courtesy: The Summit Post

If ever there was a table set
on the John Muir Trail,
it was picked clean
between meals
by Steller Jays
impatiently waiting,
screeching, falling
from Tamaracks
in the midden around
a black circle of stones.

The trail is wide
through Rae Lakes
beneath Fin Dome—
slick leather soles
on the Serpent’s back—
my name is in the box
above the fractured chimney
where I held a tourist
pregnant from falling.
Saved two risking one.

I leave again without the work,
without the pack stock,
without the traffic on the trail
whenever I want
to cast clear water
to green submarines
cruising a hidden lake
that I suspect
the world has found
and picked clean.

                                 for Tim Loverin