Heavenletters

DECEMBER - SIERRA NIGHTS

Giant hills practice
meditations and begin
to dream the big heaven.
Your heaven, white and cold,
drifts itself against
mountains. Full night.
Gray, angled rock slabs
talk quietly to fit the quiet
of you. Backcountry within,
sprawling miracle.
It shifts keys, despite
frozen boulders
in imperious heights -
where the pines are clean
as your love moments.

Remember how,
in a cabin of plywood and brick,
you, gray hunter, stooped,
slow as centuries,
leaned and ladled warm soup,
hummed a snatch of song about
fated wagon trains,
lost trails? There was
no one there for your souop.
But you were sure
the night-cloaked hills
stirred with unseen thought,
good company while
the big heaven,
altogether voiceless,
looked on.