Pepper Trail

Grouse Gap

The willows stir with warblers, juncos
Late July, and the mountain is burning
Moving from forest into smoke

In the arc of summer, each warbler, junco
Has moved from egg to naked urgent chick
To ragged youth, stirring the willows

A through-hiker appears, burned brown
Moving fast through the tunnel of flowers
Larkspurs, bent under the weight of bees

He does not speak, he does not stop
His is a business of miles
He has seen flowers already

My life below is submerged in smoke
Hidden, but I remember it
A memory antique as snow

As the workings of a darkroom
My father moving a sheet of white paper
Bringing a world into the light

Pepper Trail‘s poems have appeared in Rattle, Atlanta Review, Ascent, Windfall, and other publications, and have been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net Awards. His collection, Cascade-Siskiyou: Poems, was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award in Poetry. He lives in Ashland, Oregon, where he works as a biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.