I have cheated death, again and again; for punishment, I lose at love, again and again.
we hike up New Hampshire’s Stinson Mountain on wooden snowshoes teardrop shape with curled lip open weave of lacquered deer hide lacing impress a waffle trail behind us we float on two feet of newly fallen soft snow foam of dream on waves of desire our assault on the granitic uplift wanders through the evergreen woods white pines red cedar Norway spruce around glacial boulders raising their muscular opposition through even deep drifts to our optimistic passage we seek possible route against gravity against the slope to the bald peak to view the forest panorama from the Timberland Owners fire lookout tower steel stilts thrusting caution into winter’s blanket of cloud waits unused for summer fire season the steps to the platform are chained off
the stone railroad station squats waiting room empty closed cold boarded-up cracked windows debris and unplowed dirty snow, empty parking spaces, decommissioned aside Laconia’s once proud town center 6:00 in the January morning Boston and Maine’s final effort to provide rail service a single car self-propelled Budd liner engine running, untended, inside lights still off I have an hour to wait before departing I walk to the nearby railroad diner dimly lighted no welcome sign open exhaust aroma of unchanged cooking oil coffee frying bacon grease heated air unremoved garbage somewhere confront me the cook talks to the train engineer who sits on the counter stool farthest from the door I am the only other customer possibly the only passenger for the 7:00 departure I order coffee cook serves cream clotted toast cold conversation ends their silence verges on surrender the Budd car will run to Boston North Station’s grim hulk the postwar city worn out unrepaired at a dead end to visit you
I want to be in Corfu I carry Durrell’s Black Book in my winter coat pocket not Catcher in the Rye before he escapes London his cold apartment the depressed friends rats foraging floors a skinny roommate with pimples staring into the small mirror with ripped black backing above the cold-water only sink Later I don’t understand his Quartet though engrossed by Alexandria’s culture of passion and cult but Justine teaches me love is onion-thick layers of deception and disappointment
A yellow bulldozer with continuous cleated tracks heavy steel push-blade on hydraulic lifts tears a generation ago through the mountainside forest to carve out two logging skidways from ridge to hollow floor for century-old ash oak pine and locust logs to be dragged a half-mile to layup yard where a truck-mounted derrick with loading crane lifts them onto double-trailer trucks now are dedicated horse trails on our farm
I trek on foot slowly with hand pruning shears removing clip by clip the overhanging veil of briars and willowy saplings and wind-torn branches already rotting from a wet winter of straggling snow drive our farm tractor using the bucket on the tilt-loader to push onto the slope of the creek below fallen trees with thick trunks and uptorn roots or mark work to be done by farm help identify deer tracks bear scat turkey hens and turkey toms that might startle horses you and your girlfriend’s ride trails to unfenced ridgetop hay fields across Cold Hollow Road to abandoned 150year-old farms with apple orchards gone to crab caved in houses out-building ruins fields reclaimed by thorny briars Bush Honeysuckles and Japanese Barberry then forest pines and poplars desolation is not fertile soil for reminiscence I am again at trailhead
Poetry is about sadness for our mortality; we should rejoice we are not immortal.