Mountains (from Salt Lake City Airport)

From the sky
The Rocky Mountains make me
think of crumpled paper,
Wrinkled sheets on an unmade bed beneath a faded late morning sunshine,
Or sometimes the raw edges
Of scars on skin.
Mountains are the history of Earth's violence upon itself-
A territorial warfare waged within the earth's core,
Or the painful adolescence of a planet in process,
Or maybe the lovemaking of land itself;
The paths they trace across the continents are faint sketches
Of a time that only God and plankton can remember.
I think they are also reminders of human smallness:
There are still some places in the world
Where the walls and barriers that bind and separate us
were not built
by human hands.

I think it's funny how mountains vanish
If you get too close:
A vast wall of rock that towers over you
Like a stone skyline
From several miles away
Becomes simply a steep path sloppily lined by trees; or just
A next step up the rocky stair.
The only way you know you are moving
Is the weight in your legs,
and if you are high enough,
The raspy confusion of your lungs.

I once loved a man
Who was in love with the mountains;
He breathed better in the penthouses of the world,
on only the fumes of oxygen.
Perhaps he was immortal, a God,
Meant for the sky itself.
I lost him, I think, in a city
And in cellphones and in the silence that distance makes probable; but then
I wonder if he lost himself too.
I wonder if he has found himself again, and if he has found someone else to love his mountains-

And then I wonder
If we always pass on the things we love
To the people who love us,
Like yawns-
or head colds.
Or, in my case,
mountains.

Homecoming

It’s the air I missed.
I remember every time I breathe it in
as the taxi ducks into the I-90 tunnel,
a hint of humidity and the rocky smell
of a city.
This thick breeze
fills my nose and mouth--
I vaguely worry
about exhaust fumes but it tastes familiar, good, close,
so I close my eyelids heavy from air travel,
and listen to the low murmur of the cab driver’s radio.
I watch him through my eyelashes:
he deftly changes 4 lanes to get to exit 18. I am relieved
he does not talk to me.
He takes my directions easily,
I wait until they are useful to give them.

I find myself coming home here,
to a city
where people are comfortable in silence
no pretense to transactions,
no passiveness in their pride, their toughness, their knowledge.
This home still surprises me-
but it is a stopping place for a soul,
and its people love so thoroughly--
their tentacles always close enough to catch and to hold you;
I think it’s funny how always we reach out for each other like old bruises, checking to make sure we are still there,
constantly, consistently
with an attachment that I think is love;
perhaps it is the winters that make us so warm with each other,
but that doesn’t really make sense.

The taxi drive home is for recounting the trip in my head,
storing away the best moments somewhere they will still hurt my heart sometimes,
and I already miss the mountains,
the thin, unnecessarily clean cobblestone streets of Europe;
the feeling of relief and wonder and the freedom
of befriending inconsequential strangers.
I feel a pang of longing in my throat, so I
look at my phone light up, remember
that there are other things to be homesick for, to come home for.
One text message makes me smile. I check facebook too,
and like something.

I pay the driver without asking how.
We wish each other goodnight; I think we mean it.
I unlock the door.
I unpack, turn on the hose to raise the water level of the hot tub.
I sort through two weeks of mail, save three letters and recycle the rest,
and finish making tomorrow’s to do list.
I pour myself a glass of water, take out the trash
in the summer evening breeze,
already back into the rhythm of home, forgetting
that I even missed the air here
at all.