All the Birds of This Day

Ode to my Range of Mountains

The mountains live in my backyard

pressed tight against this valley—

a mother wearing an apron of snow

father with a jagged beard

little sister burned in summer—

Tell me, mountains that raised me,

why didn’t you warn me

when I was going to make a mistake?

Still, thank you,

for many things:

for long grass in springtime,

the red fox who darted out,

the deer and the steep path,

the stream and beaver dams,

for the time I hiked to your top at night

and lost the trail coming down,

for the way the weeds glowed like gold

under the navy sky as I came down through them—

the way I felt that I too had been alive a thousand years.