Early Memory Pilgrimage

...Mesmerized and wanting what I could think of only as touch, I stood at the window next to the hills, straining to see the cottonwood out there for climbing in summer...

...I sensed then, but couldn't have said it-that I would remain lonely while both savoring and fearing the physical world, that being would mean aching beyond the staunch arms of trees toward the blood warmth of beasts, and heartbeat...and loving it more for the cold...

...A blue dusk came on as my breath formed on the glass, frost needles reaching from die edge, the room darkening and the blizzard growing paler...

...Suddenly-something big moved in the whiteness, like a frozen ledge tome alive: it went still then moved off, cloaked in hoarfrost, a shape arctic as iceberg, but I knew iL was steaming underneath, thriving in the cold...

...Pilgrimage Somewhere in this city is a river you could find it if you could reach the hills and look down or if you were a sparrow or were watching from a plane a plane is flying over now through fumes and you have to concentrate very hard against a traffic of sound to know again you can find the river if you can see the old trees winding its banks most were cut down but some still huddle in the smog as the sun swells up they are where you must go for their leaves have lived on once like a fine stained glass their green breathed light once like small hands opening they came into being accepting and with your best sight you will find them there along the grey river looking up to a transparency of leaves you will know the day is ancient as sunlight the city is the mirage in which you live...

...Poems Dixie Partridge Early Memory Salt River Range, Wyoming The pale netting of farmhouse curtains on my back-and outside the white gauze of a blizzard, wind like a gyre of undertow in a deep white stream...