Cartographies

Random Silences

69 Random Silences Tragically, because suddenly, in untimely guise, Someone in these mountains, monthly, dies: Just last January an errant sledder zoomed Into a cedar’s trunk, leaving as sole heirloom Her peppered blood upon the broken-faced snow; In February fog a Cessna’s nose wobbled too low, Dipped and crushed itself into a vacant wall Of ice-scarred granite rising above Angel Falls; March found, in failing daylight, parked alone In the ski lift lot, a clean-shaven man, young, Who’d stuck a .45 into his mouth, gone out In smoke, his horn blaring hours into the night; Even April, month of sweet repair, nipped off Its best bud, a canyon boy tossed out like a glove From his sister’s cliff-leaping car, a storm Of dust wrinkling the air, his seven years torn From him with a groan, when his skull struck stone. Month after month, the litany of crumpled bone, The stuttered stories passed from mouth to mouth Like grim hosts, the prayers layered, calloused, Droning on into our fear, year after year. Such tales exponentially accrue: those of flood, fire, Avalanches, an overdose of drugs, hypothermia— The deaths become an antidote, not for amnesia, But for any fleeting and complacent hope Each of us may harbor, that we wholly control Our fates, that we’re quite equal to the power These mountains demonstrate by merely being here. Each month another death defines our lives, Cautions us to watch our steps, and inspires 70 Our renewed respect for every unsnagged breath, For landscapes untindered by our troubled zest— And yet, something far more dangerous than awe Quickens our hearts: a primal need quietly gnawing At the spine, some unruly, magnetic want that Grows wildly in us—mountainous and gaunt. ...