No One Other
They needed not call you Ishmael
unblest unburdened with fame or money
no one on way with no one other
you slipped the country drunk at night
and you can see it ever now
this very movement
achy John Steinbeck as Don Quixote did not want to be alone or go
nameless, friendless, without any of the safety one gets from family,
friends, and accomplices. There is no reality in the danger. It's just
a very lonely, helpless feeling—a kind of desolate feeling. For this
reason I took one companion on my journey
brought him a Sancho in that mutt but think of Modestine Platero, ridden and
talked to as well, the pickup Rocinante made it three, he had been
rather seriously ill with one of those carefully named difficulties which
are the whispers of approaching age
not in some while
heard the speech of America, smelled the grass and trees and sewage,
seen its hills and water, its color and quality of light
drove into it so too late, Steinbeck got hell off the road hurried home to die in
ease, Larry McMurtry wanted at millennium turn
to look
merely to roll along the great roads, the major migration routes that carry
Americans long distances quickly, east-west or north-south
more like me my hardy Crown Vic and not much later, around their age but
nondomestic a native man to the trek resuming it
they needed not call you Henry David
who had not built a chicken coop in
San Francisco Flagstaff Fargo
if I went eighty-five would die
you thought but did so any way
y no volveráááás
as age approaches, the appetite for long drives may leave me, which is
why I want to get rolling now
McMurtry wrote, a traveler without
Charley
Mister Charlie
Victor Charlie
while I had been on them during all that approach, had stayed worked written
here and yon, meant not now to seek America my vanished prime restore an
appetite, only get to Western Slope from North Dakota, a narrow agendum
they needed not call you John Crowe Ransom
the many ties you had not been wearing
psych-tech poet in old Crown Vic
you slipped the country drunk at night
a trail had ever been for you
some red arroyo
thick heat the eve of August one, I was at a farm in North Dakota intended to
leave next morning but would have to write in logbook that a woman had
turned up unannounced for supper. I decided to take off right then. (She
had diddled what I let her put on her website.) Even though Sister had
made a special dish, I did not sit to table. All night across lonely central
S.D. on hwy. 212; a nap in car at rest area near Sundance; woke to clear
predawn in coolth and dryness, a Black Hill there at hand. Now I'm in
Pathfinder Dam rec. area. Talkative birds (unseen). To die of drink
had nodded toward the south on night run where I had one time visited writing
ranching woman friend whose name meant pretty, was building a home with her
mountain man on the Hills' flank
they needed not call you Jedediah
her pretty mouth so full of chew
the man long dead her writing turned to periodismo, would not have remembered
me, I had had no thought of stopping wanted to be in west Colorado get off the
road to
look
now but afoot in national monument or on Grand Mesa, find psych-tech job,
maybe park Crown Vic and stay
y no volveráááás
you heard it texmex radio
another leg the same great trek
midnight vibrato
the monument. Written in Saddlehorn Campground at last light. Ranger
happens to be an expert on strange John Otto, who created this park and
of whom I've been thinking since ninety-seven. Drank a jug of my
favorite, Little Kings ale. I look down on Grand Valley, over to misty
Grand Mesa. Should thither tomorrow. The wind has come and gone.
It's starting up again. May have to batten tent
I resumed my lifelong hike next morning, Black Ridge, young rattler told me
walk but not on him, the moment I went into now was dry at reddish piñon
height, or came into, I knew the moment many a day had reached thorn cliff
gold sand or prairie of it any a when or where the same, was home in that
moment, the reason to hike, then ducking back to time I rented a room in Grand
Junction on way up Mesa, did not
mean to do the entire Crag Crest, but what a fine route. Dizzy-blooming
mountain flora. Eleven miles of doug fir and engelmann spruce.
Unhazed view from crest itself, over eleven thousand feet: distant
higher barren reaches. They thought I was dead
they needed not call you Lazarus
unblest unburdened with some one other
to want you to stay or return
you might retire to Boca Linda
the habitanos of the moment who had ever waited on the trail, I might have
carried someone with me, entered it not alone, might not
no good to snook at her like that
incompañero
when a man that don't need drink to loosen the tongue gets drunk and talks,
oh my
I took the short John Otto trail. It ended very near Independence
Monument. I'd seen a photo of him climbing it to raise Old Glory at
the top
he needed nothing was drunk on America had wrought the trails with a pick, even
a road or two, I liked the
Serpent's, undriven since nineteen fifty
the one in
Monument Canyon
made for mule and man maybe another, did lead to red wedding rock, the
woman arrived was not a dream but seemed to want Otto's who tried to carry her
with him into the moment, at each side of rock
written out with pieces of quartz
a shibboleth he and woman agreed on
Truth
Honor
Love
Justice
they lasted eight weeks, he had been in Napa State Hospital like me where I had
done training, not Otto, but the woman did not make it or was it he that failed to
get her in, would moment have opened to two in any kind of love
they needed not call you Cyrano
lover on road with loved one other
the moment seemed to be for two
at Bodega Head or Mazatlán
or Mendocino the both of you there
ocean long away
early to Kannah Creek and tried the Spring Camp Trail. A no-nonsense
unremitting climb. I hiked a distance before reaching Indian Point cutoff;
I was in aspens then. Am savoring every Augenblick like a Nietzschean.
Against the Truth, Justice, Love, Honor of Otto and the woman I am
tempted to put N's fire, defiance, self-disregard, and love
were no psych-tech jobs on whole Western Slope so I got part-time lowgrade
work at an unlocked unit, kept on the trails but had to use Crown Vic to reach
them, drive to go afoot reach job site too, the road meant lowgrade alertness to
moment and I drove for the heightening that waited, sometimes a long way,
even to
Chaco Canyon. After an almost too scenic drive thru San Juans (hip
Ouray). Did a five-mile loop hike to Pueblo Alto in perfect warmth.
Others have come to seek equinox. Do I know this place
a woman I had use to love maintained that she and I had run here mid nineteenth
century, been Navajo
I was a healer
she said, a heliometric slot in rock and infinite unseen avenues returned nothing
that I knew to me now, the canyon wide dry quiet alone
the Navajo hadn't clocked the sun either, had ranged in empty Chaco and
out. The ruins would have been as odd to them as everything is to me
they needed not call you Everyman
who only anywhere just arrived
no one on way with no one other
you might have been a chaparral cock
and you can see it ever now
this very movement
a ride too
to Arches. An RV queue at entrance, but I did get a campsite. Many
Germans here and on the ill-marked Devil's Garden Trail. Went astray
and had to boulder. At sundown I looked out east over the evening ruby
rock that Ed Abbey had loved. An a.m. visit to his old trailer site. I
think I found the right juniper
had seen a hundred vehicles at that trailhead, what would he have thought of
Arches now, the horniest man in American writing next to Jim Harrison, did what
he could for the land as well
they needed not call you Edward Abbey
a man that cannot forget will thrive, it happened on Puget Sound, many a dank
month of her, Sinclair Inlet
the wend of the road was maritime
you fucked a mermaid in the water
had swum onto me, the best I would have
and slipped the country drunk at night
running to mountain desert plain
y no volveráááás
in the moment's ambit
Black Ridge Canyon
Dolores River
Uncompahgre
over them all the mesa that I did on a
long hard trek. Coal Creek Trail, bear sign at its foot. Aspens moving
into full gold at eighty-five hundred feet. The way became vague on
bench under the rim, where cattle ruled; one cowpath among many. No
hikers. I did see lug prints. Wind on edge of mesa was hefty and a bit
chill. Sixteen miles, too much for a day climb. A jug of Arches water
fueled me
returning as ever none too willing to time, myopic Grand Junction and world,
noting its history the news
nuclear bombs used to be exploded underground a few miles north of
GJ. People building homes were offered uranium tailings to mix with
their concrete. No charge. Bomb in Bali. Your monotheism at work
the unit where I had a job closed down
they needed not call you San Francesco
a bird is meant to be watched oh my
eat of the tree like no one other
which had been no threat to my poverty, I had wanted to stay at it, to earn
more would have robbed the heathen in me of the now
you slipped the garden drunk at night
and on thy belly shalt thou go
in la povertàààà
I have hiked everywhere it seems but Indian Point. With leaves down
I can see it from east window, high, far, retiring. Ice on windshield at
dawn yet large black flies in motion where I parked. Land's End Road.
I thought, an animal is watching me. Claro: one old mare. Ravens, piñon
jays. Minnesota cornography on NPR. Shan't get to Indian Point this
round
monotheism evades the moment in boilerplate, while
sherpas and Tibetans avoid eating fish partly because they lay so many
eggs, each one with the potential to beget another living being
in Utah Israel Iran o gawd, I was moving none too quick on end of Devil's
Canyon loop and met two cowboy horsemen, middle aged, their salutatory
how yew doin oldtimer
aposiopetic, have to get rid of this white beard I did not croak in reply, to leave
Grand Junction, a onetime landlord in Yuma was preparing a way for my next
nonhome
they needed not call you Wendell Berry
to cover the ground is to love it
he wrote of stewardship the earth the virtue in
a local economy
no poem but the agripoem
neighborhood
subsistence
right for them all not me
there will never be another
like your everlovin mother
I wanted to see the earth to farm the moment in migration, wished I could do
midnight vibrato on one acre with Shelli a cute too-young thing
if you went eighty-five would die
did so anyway
whom I worked with, she told me in a dream that
two of my published narratives contained an orgasm. Near the end—you
ejaculated both times, she said. A mild reproof
but had to get up Mount Garfield, an ugly dried-mud presence, been looking at
me and I at it too long, so
climbed via the short route, two thousand feet in two miles. Nicer
than I had thought, esp. at first bench and higher, with young
ponderosas in the cold. A danger trail. Flagpole at summit with shreds
of Old Glory attached, erected 1988 in memory of the fallen here
not Garfield John Otto
on Everest Nick Estcourt during a solo ascent saw a figure behind him
in dim light. Would die on K2. On Kanchenjunga Pete Boardman was so
sure others were following the party that he looked back. Died on
Everest. No one/Nothing shadowed me today
no dearth of sun, but I felt night reclaiming the rocks, to eliminate time from life
and work ignore it
I toddle into the shed, I turn thirty, I retire to Boca Linda
they needed not call you Fridjof Nansen
neither a Japanese man nor a cat
ignore the place you leave for the movement you are in
den resignierten Glanz
of what is running out, one valediction a walk by the Colorado, I
met a small whirlwind on the Corn Lake river trail. It spun ahead of me,
a leaf whisk. Come here, I said. It did. No other wind
no one on way with no one other
you slipped the winter right at dawn
and you could see it ever now
on Indian Point
Note to Miami Beach
I did not win my spurs on Collins Avenue
now you see me as a cowboy language poet
to try to hoot along with missa cantata
at a fire you have made of palo verde
when all you expect me to do is nonrefer
oh I
am just a rhinestone saddle bum like you
lopin high from one performance gig to the next
havin so many a lingo in the conk case
dont make me no Cimmerian book boyero
de Cimarrón
let my range word on that be sung
California
are you Syria's
we have rum for all
Yellow Springs
They saw me but did not know who I was
or knew who I was but did not see me
they let me be until it was too late
so that they had to laisser faire for good
I lived on what I did not have to do
and had no reason to go on running
in flight or was it pursuit but it took
me to Oregon Guanajuato Mu-
nich the edge of Toroweap overlook
not that anything cracked my solitude
the more I moved the whollier it got
which contradicted the notion of who
had seen me and not known that I would need
one place to squat if I wanted alone
I do not aim to slow my moving on
unless I get to Yellow Springs tonight
Love in Colón
kiss me Isthmian
if you wont let me in your pants
what or whom do I default to
kiss me Isthmian