Bobbing Red

By C.D.Courter
From the book "Icinder and other poems"

                      Bobbing Red



The sheltering sky is like
   a garden, where soft puffs of
 cloud grow  slowly above the
     granite ramparts,  then drift
   on beyond Mount Conness
 and boil away to naught but
         the endless
              blue.

And in the pocket,
                  cirque,
          snow banks
    left from winter slowly melt 
       to mossy rivulets that
    trickle over stones
          in soft voices.

Slowly in the thin cool air,
             slowly:
  like the way your red pith hat,
           souvenir
  of some airshow at China
      Lake or Point Mugu,
          slowly it bobs along as
   you stroll along,
       stepping carefully on scree
           among tall boulders,
rucksack on your shoulders,
the remains of lunch, my warm shirt, mom's
sweater, Jim's hat,
the family's needs and cares on your strong shoulders.

Gaylor Lakes, above ten-thousand feet,
above the pass, above the blue Chevy wagon
meant to hold us, meant to provide
a means of retreat for you and us, of renewal
and time together.  And down the road
to the river, and the camp, sheltered under
tarpaulin, above the ground on tables, heated
in milk cans, suspended in a hammock.

I will sway there reading Mad Magazine again
for the rest of my days, eating
Oreos, drinking water dipt right from the stream.
And after day's end, tales of Mister Bear
Squash You All Flat, the warmth
of the fire, your big
lap.

To this youngish
     middle-aged fellow
with a reddish
     beard going white
one day to be
    not unlike your own,

with a blond sensitive daughter
not unlike your own

    with a son with a frog
in his pocket
    not unlike your own,

an engineer artist farmer like you,

I cannot think of granite rimrock
of snow laying white in sunny cirques
of erratic boulders scattered on 
polished stone
without remembering that red
hat, and how it slowly bobbed
along, and how that pack sat
upon your shoulders, with all I needed
inside.



                              C. D. Courter




(c)1998-2003 C. D. Courter
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