Colcha

the gifts the mountain kept

90 the gifts the mountain kept today the blue mountain is breathing something hot into the still dawn a reddish orange woven through a visiting storm of gray clouds twenty two years ago an august i am six years old that is when i heard about the mountain and a plane that lost altitude one december its belly full of toys a crash this is the promise my father spoke of jito if we climb it you can have all the toys up there he is not the same father of 1977 but the mountain no that too is different there is a story of two navajo who disappeared into the summer mountain named after its winter self blanca 91 they are not lost but look for a gift winged and capable of flight a silver four prop with tons of toys two pilots never found there is a telling of how they changed how their faces spoke of something spiritual how the wind left a historical record like rings of a tree written into their skin so too my father and i have changed less so in our skin but in what we no longer mention he does not speak of climbing like the younger father of 1977 there is nothing said of the battery operated toys strewn at 13,800 ft. the pattern here is twos a boy and his father two pilots and two navajo sent to find us all i would like to ask them what they found there 92 if their search party would bring closure to a december when things stopped flying or to an august in 1977 the day elvis died and the scattered toys became gifts the answer is what the mountain gives back what it cannot hold the snow it shakes from its flanks the gifts it keeps like promises ...