Hike to the Falls
“Five hundred million years ago,”
I said, “when I was but a kid
the crest of this hill we’re crossing
rose as high as a Himalaya.” “Rhyolite,”
I pronounced a dirty, reddish rock
I kicked, but naming things cannot assuage
the grief in things that lingers
between words for things. The path
to the falls was long and rutted
through hardwoods I understood
from a long-ago study of Muenscher
Keys to Woody Plants, like an angry boy,
unnoticed at school, might memorize
our Constitution to own the rules
and prove his teachers wrong. A stream
churned below through boulders
like eternal laughter, and I thought
“meta-basalt,” “limestone,” and called
attention to hepaticas and yellow
violets named for Pennsylvania,
knowing I was boring someone
who’d agreed to love me, yet somehow
unable to let loose control and let
the soul in things speak their own mute
joy in things. And finally at the cascade,
still rollicking like a stream of gems
as in my youth when glorious intimations
of nameless things once thrilled me,
people were holding up telephones
before its ceaseless crashing, then before
their faces, facing backward to freeze
a blurred rush around the edges
framing their looming grimaces,
and I had no name for that.
I said, “when I was but a kid
the crest of this hill we’re crossing
rose as high as a Himalaya.” “Rhyolite,”
I pronounced a dirty, reddish rock
I kicked, but naming things cannot assuage
the grief in things that lingers
between words for things. The path
to the falls was long and rutted
through hardwoods I understood
from a long-ago study of Muenscher
Keys to Woody Plants, like an angry boy,
unnoticed at school, might memorize
our Constitution to own the rules
and prove his teachers wrong. A stream
churned below through boulders
like eternal laughter, and I thought
“meta-basalt,” “limestone,” and called
attention to hepaticas and yellow
violets named for Pennsylvania,
knowing I was boring someone
who’d agreed to love me, yet somehow
unable to let loose control and let
the soul in things speak their own mute
joy in things. And finally at the cascade,
still rollicking like a stream of gems
as in my youth when glorious intimations
of nameless things once thrilled me,
people were holding up telephones
before its ceaseless crashing, then before
their faces, facing backward to freeze
a blurred rush around the edges
framing their looming grimaces,
and I had no name for that.
