Paul leaves.
He drives away between two incidences.
One is in the open.
The other is underground.
He drives to Taos to take a room.
He drives to Taos Mountain.
On its flanks he expects to walk
the two incidences into understanding.
He does not expect the aspens or ponderosas to help.
Often they do in silent ways.
He does not expect the rocky ground to help.
Often it does with painful insight.
When he walks Taos Mountain
he walks that place that is half dream half real.
He takes himself to the shadow world.
The mountain does not lead him or lead him astray.
It is a place in his mind where pink
and indigo stripe the sky.
It is a place of thought and not-thought.
Where walking merges everything together.
The open incident speaks for itself.
The underground incident emerges in pictures.
Pictures borrowed from memory to create metaphor.
It requires time to learn language to describe itself.
Paul walks into a new vocabulary by the time
he reaches the lake.
He walks until light is wrung from the sky.
He returns to Taos for sleep.
He returns to us the next day.
He goes into his studio and writes.
copyright © 2021 Kenneth P. Gurney
Umflop 