Godlover -- deciding again to go
there -- trods through long, barren valley’s once-flush
landscape where vanished honey bees had flowed,
blessing now-lost fruit orchards turned sagebrush.
He climbs brief hills, his direction guided
by sun descending to far peak he seeks.
He thinks of how gulls once squawked and glided
here, greeting him as a boy, their pronged beaks
like dull-gold fish hooks. All gone now. He walks
to the ledge, gazes down at the vast gorge
they once called the Pacific. Softly talks
of its dark floor, like ash in a dead forge.
He sits, recalls young love here one summer.
Whispers Keats’ last lines in “Chapman’s Homer”.
Roger Armbrust
November 3, 2015
