Poem-a-Day

^{for Frances Diemoz} 

was a trail that would lead sufficiently far away 
             to make it a good walk by the time we got back. 

We wanted its footprint to be light enough 
             to escape notice but deep enough to follow. 

Its route not known, its end site 
             and turning-back point not yet glimpsed, 

but its mouth had to be where the easement 
             on the property above met undeveloped city land. 

To scurry straight up the piñon-studded shale 
             was to slide scrambling backwards in one long gasp, 

arms needle-scratched and palms shale-scraped. 
             It took most of summer’s Sunday morning dog walks 

to construct a less direct and better course,  
             tracking the barbed wire fence line both north (left) 

and right (south), seeking openings 
             in the ponderosa pines to climb up at a slight incline. 

It took much re-traipsing of the same ground 
             to suss it out, snipping strips of neon orange or pink 

from the reels at our waists, tying, untying, retying 
             (at first I typed “retyping”) ribbons every few trees. 

When we reached the gulch that further on 
             crosses under our shared road, we veered back from it  

and up, inadvertently creating our first switchback. 
             Later, we came to tack away well before the drop-off. 

By that time, we knew where we were headed: 
             a vista point we’d stumbled upon coming up a saddle 

from the north. It was already marked by cairns. 
             In the sun, the city below was a blur, while the mountain 

peaks across the valley glinted like arrowheads. 
             Blazing our trail back up, we often found ourselves guided 

by the hoofprints of crisscrossing deer paths, 
              each delicate stamp on the dirt a seal, a heraldic fleur-de-lis.