Trying to write something to go with these photos, and I'm coming up a bit dry. There's no reason for that, though--there's so much I could say. Maybe I feel like I've said it already. Another backpacking trip; another stretch of mountain scenery, another story that's better experienced than told. Still, it was a good experience: bright mornings and cool evenings, occasionally brutal scrambles up rocky trails, sunrise and sunset from mountain ridges.
This time I was in Pemigewasset Wilderness in White Mountain National Forest, which I guess gives me the opportunity to reflect on our national wildernesses, the definition of wilderness, things like that. The Wilderness Act turns fifty this year. Pemigewasset itself was designated in 1984, so its federal designation is only thirty years old--though of course, the land is much older than that, which is perhaps what makes the designation important: it's a decision of leave this be. I passed a rusted out stove from a logging camp back in the woods, a mark of history and human presence--though of course the trails I was walking were also a mark of human presence. But for the most part the forest was quiet, and when I set up camp for the night the silence was a weighted reminder of my distance from roads and people. Whatever has happened, the forest rebounded, perhaps different but still real and vital. 
p.s. For another angle on national wildernesses, head on over to High Country News.

Autumn Aspens: Cumbres Pass

Though stands low on the mountain
remain green as sliced limes,
higher up, midsummer's far gone

in flaming amazement. When wind
riffling a ridgeline grove
fans our caveman sense of fire

as a wonder lovely to own,
over Cumbres Pass gold leaves
spill and spin like doubloons

till flame and coin seem one,
close as we'll come to money
on trees loved for their moment

almost better than money. Just when
have we spent such afternoons?
Less than once in a hundred?

That many? Then stop the car
again. At happiness to burn. Bright
as the life we're still looking for.

-Reg Saner, 1997

I brought in several rolls of film to be developed a couple weeks ago, and got back an eclectic set of images--some from Norway, some from home, some from Saskatchewan, and a handful that appeared to have been taken years ago, by my brother, in New Hampshire and Wisconsin and maybe Vermont. And it's fun, to take short and long trips backwards in time to these other places. But as I keep reminding myself, I can only be in one place at a time.
It doesn't always feel that way, though. I took a quick trip up the mountain (that's Mount Greylock) yesterday and I found myself walking, pack on my shoulders, through Massachusetts and Norway at once: lush green woods on either side, heavy with rain and mist, and yet in my mind's eye I could see the sparser mountains of Norway. I didn't want to be back there (not yet, anyway)--I've enjoyed being home and reacquainting myself with New England's woods. But for a few moments Norway was as vivid to me as the real landscape around me, and I suppose it was a reminder of something I wrote in this blog a few weeks ago: I carry these places in the strange pockets of my mind and they will emerge like negatives from forgotten rolls of film; almost as real as life, even if they aren't.

What's a picture for? Or a memory? I'm asking, because I've got a hoard of both.

St. Elizabeth

I run high in my body
on the road toward sea.

I fall in love. The things
the wind is telling me.

The yellow sky quiet
in her quiet dress.

Old birds sending news
from the reddish hills.

& the one hawk flying
in the distance overhead.

That hawk is what
the wind says. In love

with the heaving
of my peacock chest,

with my lungs, two wings,
such flying things,

but mine for now, just for now
as I open my stride

above the good, dirt road,
fall in love with the mustard

& coriander dust,
& the far, far mountain

beveled by light, by rain,
the easy eye of the sun, now,

smoke floating across the hillside
like a face I knew once very well.

Very well, I fall in love
with the flowers & the wash

hung like prayer flags, see,
in red Juanita's yard. In love

with the earth the color of earth. In
love with the goats, their bellies & hooves,

& the goat mouths bleating
as they greet me on the road.

I fall in love. How they wear
their strange & double-eyes.

How they do not blink
or laugh at me

or say a thing I understand
when I ask them in my English,

because they circle around my feet,
as if they always knew me,

Were you my children once?
Did I know your names?

Oh, little magics?
Little children?

-Aracelis Girmay, 2011

Mixed Media

The stars grow lemon
in the field, spread
like tea leaves in
a cup; red-wing
blackbirds fold themselves
into the fence,
corn dreamers.

The sky undulating
with clouds returns
gold-throated arpeggios
to the one walking
at sunrise, sunfall.

Light as the air
I sit on my
cottage steps;
a tom cat come
home to die for
the day.

-Duane Niatum, 1991

A Blessing in the Dust

You thought the blessing
would come
in the staying.
In casting your lot
with this place,
these people.
In learning the art
of remaining,
of abiding.
And now you stand
on the threshold
again.
The home you had
hoped for,
had ached for,
is behind you—
not yours, after all.
The clarity comes
as small comfort,
perhaps,
but it comes:
illumination enough
for the next step.
As you go,
may you feel
the full weight
of your gifts
gathered up
in your two hands,
the complete measure
of their grace
in your heart that knows
there is a place
for them,
for the treasure
that you bear.
I promise you
there is a blessing
in the leaving,
in the dust shed
from your shoes
as you walk toward home—
not the one you left
but the one that waits ahead,
the one that already
reaches out for you
in welcome, in gladness
for the gifts
that none but you
could bring.

-Jan Richardson

Thanks to Katerina for this one.