Jon Wolston's Poetry Archive

Who would have thought
contentment was in the cards
ascending three thousand feet
before 10:30 a.m.
on a Snickers bar
and a few sips
in the rain,
glasses fogging up abruptly
at the gray ridge-line
as a warm front from out West
swept across?

Any vaunted views
of cliffs of slippery granite
are lost
in a rippling forest of clouds.

Like ants a-march
on a fallen sequoia,
my son and I scale the bumps,
or aim to do so,
making the best of the glowing window
of his visit home.

As the weather tanks,
we scale three four-thousand footers.

Inside our cotton envelope
we can feel the shoulders of each peak
first broadening then narrowing
the path of our hasty traverse,
each summit a near afterthought
so rapid is our pace.

Below Mount Lafayette
the AMC hut offers scant shelter
on our descent,
its staffers mute
in a fog of their own design.

Back in the weather we clamber down
respectful of the Whites anew
and drive home,
cell phones dry,
to clam chowder,
steaming.

I’m so tired I’ll just
microwave a potato
after flipping dead ducks
all day in the rain.

My chest has a place
that hurts in the morning
or at times
spent sitting alone,
boding ill of peace
and of joy,
of skiing down peaks
and painting on ladders.

Then it all escapes notice
as the heart does its silent work,
for nothing.

No room at the inn
his eyes said, no vacancy–
downsizing my heart.

Who would have thought
I would wear these clothes all day–

the ones Lira knocked coffee
all  over at breakfast
to volcanic chagrin,

the ones I pruned ivy in
this morning,

the ones I sat in, meditating,
and drop off tonight,
cafe-au-lait spotted,
time gone,
naked.

Our woodpile needs a roof
like the ones in New Hampshire
to keep the rain off.

I don’t have to say,
“I want to go in now”
or “I have a cramp”
or “We’re out too deep.”

My fellow swimmers
just follow along,
wordlessly paddling
in our warm lake of stars.

A shallow puddle
in the backyard
cries out to be filled in.

But you are full, I say,
full already.

Can’t you see my depression?
the puddle asks.

Ducks on their way north
love you as you are, I said,
and went inside.

When I returned,
the thirsty ground had done its work.

Ducks overhead sang a honky-tonk tune
and missed their muddy friend.

Humility’s a virtue with a zest
and disillusionment a grace
for the mighty of our race,
as thy merry eye for lameness
can attest.

From you I learned to keep my powder dry
to value patience on a wound
lest an innocent be ruined.
Now I read the morning paper
and reply.

I woke up on main street
in a capitol city
on a sidewalk of pearls
awash in self-pity.

My mattress obstructed
pedestrian flow.
A padrone down the way
said I just had to go.

My eyelids were stitched
but as morning seeped through
carrot cake cookery
came into view.

I’d fallen asleep
on the eve of destruction
with nary a hope
of such lovely construction.

It may have been Rome,
perhaps Yokohama.
It wasn’t the Beltway.
There was no Obama.