He was standing by the stairway as I descended— lowering my left leg with the bad knee without bending it And then my right knee—also carefully I saw his profile first and it did an odd thing to my stomach which was now hiding somewhere at the back of my throat I am falling forward deafened by an avalanche of annotated possibilities tumbling down the side of the mountain boulders to the left of me—jibbers to the right There is no time for prevarication then it is still again A bird is warbling as before— And a breeze leads the trees In a chorus of sweet lament Heaven sent the sun blinking through a stand of Japanese willow and a late summer sunflower peeking through the slatted gate It’s getting late Stripes of early evening Escape through the fencing And line up for the count A chorus of crickets carry on A distant buzz saw scrapes the air Ebony castanets a recalcitrant leaky faucet And the diminished cries of what might be A coyote or just a lonely dog in the fog I can see the man with the profile He turns to face me His mouth shaped in a remembered scream Der Schrei der Nature Don’t be fooled By all this foolishness— The smoke of abrogated reason Shooting ducks is out of season He contends doffing his hat But he is not the one He has a sympathetic face And soulful eyes But he is not the one—numero uno I must climb back up the mountain Provincetown, 2019
Hiding Out