Shining Horns

Nature Writing at Raven Chronicles Online

Derek Sheffield

How We Look

Fur-fat and stock-still on the trail

	they appear to be looking

		into a mythic sky, posed

for a feral portrait, or a wish

	to draw us closer before they turn

		and level a frontal marmot scrutiny.

the way their noses aim askance,

	they're not here. Or we

		are gone. Or we are here.

but they're not sure.

	Upright on boulders, they are ready

		to tumble at the shrill signal

if we become, all-of-a-sudden,

	by sneeze or shuffle, believable.

		Our pack-heavy shapes, gathered

in their sky, look up

	to Shuksan: how distant

		and present it juts, how sharp

a lookout, clarity

	we envy through tilted glass

		until from every nowhere

the whiteout.  When the peak

	disappears, we turn and labor

		down the moraine, switch-

backing like mules silently spaced

	in the falling snow.

		While we drive our miles and climb

to bright rooms, they settle 

	below in a general huddle,

		slowing for their long night.

Between one flake

	and the infinite next, one pulse beat

		and the second, our burdened forms

waver and loom, weave and are gone.	

Firefighters Walk into Mountain Sports

Straight from flames, faces soot-slapped

and yellow jackets swishing,

they track cinders of century-wide pines

wrenched from root-sockets

and sucked skyward like bungled fireworks.

Blazes in their ears, they shout across aisles

and racks, thumbs hooked over belts

with curious assurance:  whether they hold

picks and shovels, or Polartec and Nike, the end

will come nameless, wearing the same face.

One models a hat, and they hoot.

If they wanted, they could howl

at such prices, or the well-tanned skier

in search of a deal and a fit

clomping seven times across the sore

in a pair of orange Atomics.

Slim and pig-tailed, the girl 

who rips their receipts from the register

makes the last sight and line they walk

before flinging again comets of earth 

at something like the sun unhinged.

From their radio, static and a mechanistic voice,

the green world spiraling into ash.

Prayer With Fur

A hollow holds the trickle

that licks Temple Ridge to life,

seeps through sun-cracked days

and cricket-pulsing nights,

draws out green stems, drops

from a ledge of granite

catching moonlight.  Mud recalls

a wet slither, and snarled roots

touch a coolness in the air

spilling past my skin.

When I press my hands into a bowl

and stoop to fill it, the water

is a frigid amazement

as the first night out

of the Garden must have been,

two people on their backs

under the unlocked sky, silenced

by the glittering fruits of stars. Ginger

lowers her face, looks to mine, and laps

until my hands hold nothing

but the strokes of her warm, slick tongue.