Pepper Trail

Fragments

1.
Parking lot of a Florida motel, after dark
Humid smell of swamp, diesel, approaching rain
Moths battering the buzzing mercury lights
Car engine ticking as it cooled

I was a boy when that trip was made
Old now, this is all that is left from that night
No answer to why I was not inside, asleep
Why the memory holds a thrill and a threat

In Antarctica once, I watched an iceberg flip
Its huge hidden bulk rise into the sky
We waited to see if the wave would drown us
The door opened, my father stood in the box of light

2.
Beach of a fishing village in Mexico, 1965
Twelve years old, bare feet, ragged shorts
Skinny and brown, I was taken for a local
Shrugged, smiled in Spanish, ran away

Inland, the pit of an opal mine
A boy on the rubble pile, hoping for a stone
Startled to see an American kid, shy
Held out to me a rock slivered with fire

Now, I hear that the village is gone
The boy I was and the boy I met
Are now old men, as long as we live
The gift still heavy in my hand

3.
We waited for the days when snow covered the roads
Cut us off from school and all outer voices
Granted us the cold sanctuary of the attic
Where we enacted journeys ending in feasting and celebration

Sister, what silks you conjured there, what gold and rubies!
My imagination faltered at the tresures you could name
But I played my part, and our sailing ships and caravans
After many perils came at last to shelter, always

Rolling your wheelchair through the Tranquility Garden
You called out the flowers, cosmos and columbine, peony and rose
Never doubted, or admitted to doubt, the adventure’s end
That other world, safe behind shivering panes of glass.

Pepper Trail’s poems have appeared in Willawaw, Rattle, Atlanta Review, Catamaran, Ascent 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 2016 Oregon Book Award in Poetry. He writes and explores the world from his home in Ashland, Oregon.