Denali
Out here, everything has a raw use or
re-use, the guide says, even the shell of
an abandoned bus becomes shelter if
winter’s gone long enough. The mosquitos
that cover us in clouds of witness. What
passes through thin barriers carrying pollen
or blood. When the permafrost thaws it lets
loose what’s been held tight to the earth, a year,
a decade. Those frozen, luminous eggs.
A lake of wonder sworn in under oath.
Buried beneath backdrop of this cocked
mountain not to die, to resurrect.
Yarrow or fireweed or dwarf primrose
come back from the spongy sleep of the dead.
She said the mountain carries time and space
on its back, that’s why we can’t see it as
anything but backdrop. As frozen. As
nobody we could recognize in a crowd
of witness. Out here, everything is redefined
by effort. A season to bake a blueberry
pie. Kill the bear for fat. Pick the buckets
of blueberries. A constellation. Where
did this river take us and the water
isn’t clear enough to see what lies beneath?
At the peak, I mouth my secrets to the hung air
to risk, to draw blood, or pollinate something
in this perilous wilderness of now.
Iris Jamahl Dunkle is an award-winning literary biographer and poet and former Poet Laureate of Sonoma County, CA. Her latest books include the biography Charmian Kittredge London: Trailblazer, Author, Adventurer (University of Oklahoma Press, 2020) and her poetry collection West : Fire : Archive (The Center for Literary Publishing, 2021). More at irisjamahldunkle.com