Goodbye.

Hansen, The Forest, The Stream, and The Wanderer, 1973

A WALK

Sunday the only day we don't work:

Mules farting around the meadow,

                            Murphy fishing,

The tent flaps in the warm

Early sun: I've eaten breakfast and I'll

                              Take a walk

To Benson Lake. Packed a lunch,

Goodbye. Hopping on creekbed boulders

Up the rock throat three miles

                              Puite Creek –

In steep gorge glacier-slick rattlesnake country

Jump, land by a pool, trout skitter,

The clear sky. Deer tracks.

Bad place by a falls, boulders big as houses,

Lunch tied to belt,

I stemmed up a crack and almost fell

But rolled out safe on a ledge

                              and ambled on.

Quail chicks freeze underfoot, color of stone

Then run cheep! away, hen quail fussing.

Craggy west end of Benson Lake – after edging

Past dark creek pools on a long white slope –

Lookt down in the ice-black lake

                             lined with cliff

From far above: deep shimmering trout.

A lone duck in a gunsightpass

                             steep side hill

Through slide-aspen and talus, to the east end,

Down to grass, wading a wide smooth stream

Into camp. At last.

            By the rusty three-year-

Ago left-behind cookstove

Of the old trail crew,

Stoppt and swam and ate my lunch.

Gary Snyder

It's sandwich time.