Place Where You Live:

Soda Springs, Idaho

A view from our cabin in the summer.

The Greater Calling

Away from powerlines dodging deer
we make ruts, we shovel back
and bury our defecation.
The snow rumbles off
the roof like the gruffle of a moose.
The poems we read become manticores
magicking around with the breeze

all unkempt looking for camping spots
this memorial weekend.
Under the snow-drifts are sad worms
digesting slippery dirt,
likely the can of raid will not kill
the scuttle mouse but we sleep
with it altogether. Woods creak.

A campfire stove with unconscious breccia
taped on the front still lithificationg.
We speak in tones of unlikeliness,
lived so far, now only drunkiness
connects our ideas, the hidden moon,
or is it the mine’s lights
above Rasmussen ridge? Drum rudiments

of drops of melt from the trees into empty
canine prints; red pine needles burn so well
was what I learned on the fathers’ and sons’ camp out.
Non-volcanic glass on the ground cuts
like arrow heads. The narrows seem

so womb-like with mountain lions cowering
above, as encroachments preside
like the bishopric in sacrament meeting.
Our free associations with the nature
of cuts on our hands of our boiled snow

of the cans of fruit cocktail and us
looking over an untethered valley, but far from.

-Jeff Pearson