Passage # 44
Dream Song #2
A sagging, orange rope means no access. This means me. I duck under anyway. I look back quick– no ski patrol–crunch through breakable crust. Go forward.I ask a student in the front, “Write on the board the word of the day– t-h-w-a-r-t.”
A huge, yellow, wooden sign broken at the corners
Do not ski alone.
Enter at portals.
What portals? I look back.
Hazards: The Glen will take you away from the ski area
Rocks, trees, cliffs
Skiing or riding here is dangerous
You will be far from help
Possible injury or death
I carve my initials my with Swiss Army knife and go forward.
A male student in the back starts to cut through something with a hunting knife.Skinning up to a clearing for a former fire tower, I look back at the trail I’ll descend. Two skiers slog up from Pine Hill three miles below. A Swiss Army knife slices the apples I’ll share. Knowing smiles under gray clouds. We’re all going forward.A nine-inch, foldable, lockable bladeThe new snow is deep, deep, deep! The serrated blade of a Swiss Army knife cuts away a little blowdown. I look back and snap my new tracks in portrait and in landscape. Whooping to the blue, indifferent woods, I go forward.
It’s just like the one my Uncle John used to field-dress deerCigar smoke tickles my nose. My brother Tom leans back. The view from the lean-to through the wafting purple haze leads me down Cathedral Brook. Brotherly closeness, brotherly self-containment of the Nothing box in our brains. Silence. Tom closes the red pen knife that sliced the tip off his cigar. I look back as he sucks a puff. I am going forward.
When
he gave me his deer knife, I stowed it with my dad’s G. I. Bayonet
from WW II
“Get up, you wuss!” How can a ski instructor berate some little kid crying? Is this some remote gym class? I look back in disgust and in reproach. Past his shocked students, I go forward. He cuts through the nylon straps of the backpack set down in front of him. I say, “May I have it?”
Envy. Why can’t I ski like that? A hot woman in white whooshes down the J-trail with whomping power turns. I look back at my slow, wide tracks. The trees and thorns close in. A hunting knife hacks through ensnaring brambles. Swerve. I am free! Go forward. We lock eyes as I say, “I ask you not to bring this to school”
A stream gurgles on and under the Transfer Line. Two cross-country skiers pole up as I look back. Deer prints punctuate the wide and unused trail. Railroad tracks, abandoned and packed over, stretch out at the southern terminus. Two snowshoers pack in green gear on Cathedral Brook Hiking Trail for a night at the lean-to. A Swiss Army knife shreds off birch bark for tinder. I breathe a prayer in the columns of pine along the brook’s baptismal waters. I look forward and go back.He gives me his knife, handle first. I ask him, “Do you hunt?”
