Katahdin

(Written between October 16-18; Completed October 20, 2015)

1

Flash by Lowell in the Autumnal dawn

            Pink blear of morning

Rush goes the mighty Merrimac

            In Kerouacian mist of pawtucketville ghosts

            Turn go the leaves
            rough characters at gray full up stations
            waiting on breakfast lines

            In rearview mirrors of the tired mind

Red Massachusetts lonely

Golden in the night

            Like earlier darkness of Philadelphia

North Philly streets

            Shrouded Stranger

            Appear in faraway view

Flows cracks on long ago pound streets

Mystery of flowing cape

Gray gray gray gray

Lurching

Phantom of mindless fear

Great death chasing

            Out of the past

Or hero of wandering fools

Regardless

            A great horror thing

            Lost in break light red

            Big northeast leering eyes

And finally left behind

Become nothing corporal

            Omen harbinger spirit herald

Portent

            Friend—

2

Snow on Katahdin

            False peak faced north

Obscured by foggy gusts of zero degree chill

And somehow this clears at night

            To star filled starry sky

Night night milky night &

            Milky Way rush of constellations

At midnight

Untied boots and thermals

            Standing in clearing

            In dim light years

            Behold! Moonless night

Coal black night diamond forged

And

            Thoreau wrote from Bangor

From foot to wheel to backpack

to Millinocket

To Katahdin to stream

            & where are the primal spirits

Rage over mountain top

Immemorial

            Crag of split rock & kaleidoscopic tree leaves

Of fall’s ebb

            Inimical & endless forests 
of the mind
            laid out

Spread unbroken to Kanady

            To artic to frozen circle

To grim desolate wastes

            Of tundra north

3

And in morning

            White skies

Icy hands

            Warm steam of mouth

Smoke of fire dawn

            Rustle of tents

Acrid scent of flame on my beard

            Ceaseless cascading stream

My dreams

            At 4am

As temperature dropped for snow

            Lift my lost kitten

            To the moon

            He is lost

            I am lost

Oh Night!

Thick on my eyes

Someplace long ago

            Voices telling me

            It was okay to let him go

Drift from summit rock slide

From bone of holy oly peak holy

            I am cradled in the night

            Fetal

            By icy root of tree

4

Root of tree

            Wreathed through wet ground

Bedded with leaves

            Twisting branches overhead

The tent

            Shrouded in its shadow

Final thought

And now morning of the mind

Awaken

Wakefulness

Task

            The first snowfalls on Maine hills

            At edge of trail end

There’ll be 8 inches or more

On mountain paths

            Whooshing waterfalls

Cough cough arctic lung

            Tip tap of large flurries

Weigh trees down

So leaves like windshield wipers

On car windows bend over road

            Baxter through Lovecraft

Lakes mist on lapping water

Pebbled shore

            Stark inky and gloom

            Heart of the northeast

            End of the world

            Millinocket Lake

            Off Blackcat dirt road

Not far from Togue Pond Twin Pines

Log cabin coffee at River Drivers

            Snow falls on

            Cold cold cold Maine

Morning

Lake effect

Swirling flurry winds

Gravel path from window

Fireplace

Katahdin invisible

Opaque whiteness

Great white north—

5

South in the October foliage on 157

            Medley at I-95 back to Bangor trek

The farthest reaches of

            Hi-way gore

To seek the Atlantic now

            Cap’n at the wheel

Light with ginger beer smells

            Old world puritanical spell

Carved wood at the

            Cross stitched lamp of the world

In motel now

            Tents clothes bodies eyes

            Too wet for another elemental night

Dry on the furnace of mankind’s

Innermost Acadia Gateway hotel

Caramel brown ale smell

            Ellsworth Trenton toothpick toothache

            Too true Trenton

Of no this isn’t New Jersey

But gauntlet to Bar Harbor Acadia cliff spill

In the Great North

            In bitter wind

            In winter’s great American shore

Come morning

            A brush across the bluest waves

6

 Blue waves

            Fishing boat fisherman’s life

Wool caps thick beards barrel chest

            Desolate but beloved distance

Beloved lighthouses

            Cut & cold hard

            Icy of heart

New England ah

            Call of gulls

Burn of engine fume

            Rock & mast

Red painted rails

            Cast against heaving sky

Glory sky

            My visions in the cool

            Blackness preceding sleep

            What sunrise would bring

            What next?

Silence

            Thunder

Tinder

            Silence

Churn

            Frush & rush

And undertow and all

Blear blast black port

Great hulking rocking bestial ships

            Silent aw silent

Mad—

7

Answer at sun-up

            Brings blue sky clouds vanish

Route 3 south

            Onto Mt. Desert Isle

Bar Harbor

            How it got it’s name

Who know? Who?

            Rocky beachhead

Shimmer under sunshine

            Without warmth

No time tho but to race around

            Start those tires roll engine roar

Chariot headed south

            Congested traffic hell of ole New York

            To bar our way

First a swing on 9 from 95 from 1

            Lobster rolls at Dock Square

End of Lanigan Bridge

Kennebunkport

And every town has a sister in Maine

Slapped port on the end

West Westport Northport Searsport Portland

            Slapped mayo or butter or both

            Grilled bread 1lbs Lobster shelled

Last day of the season

            Cold gray water

            Thick with coming winter

Scent of lemon salt water fishy scent

            Little shore towns

            Hidden from time

            All along bottomless

            US-1

8

From there now gone

            From here now going home

Day falling fast to our left

            On rushes the night 515 miles away

            Our mason Dixon mid-atlantic line

Rivers Delaware Susquehanna Anacostia Potomac

States MA Rhode Isle Connecticut New York

New Jersey PA Delaware MD

Pitch black is October night shift

            5am of morning slow crunch of time

Last days fresh

Fresh like the recent dead

Hint of decay

Memory fade

            Slide in the rearview

Alone now at destination point

Last dead drop my own

Each goodbye one less body of the whole

Of the host six souls one car one mountain

Whole of Maine

            Six directions they go

            Gabow V Tommy Joe Chase myself

I go mine

I go it alone but not alone

            Really

Toward what future may come

This is spring this is summer this is fall’s truest end

            Faced in directions south face north east west

To roam loam roam roam home roll flat burnt leaves

Vibrate soul soil soul legs hands heart wheel engine

Ancient stone forged trail in gray-like dreams

            Go Go North a vision a god a martyr Go

            Ka-Tah-Din    

            Ever always standing
            Shrouded

            Watching
Indomitable