Twisp, Washington<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Back east, they\u2019d call these foothills mountain,
\nbut you learn to map a different scale here
\nwhere the road west of you keeps rising
\ninto a pass closed Thanksgiving to April,
\nwhere yards of rusted Ford bodies
\nand wringer washers aren\u2019t lack of pride
\nbut history to people that don\u2019t read books,
\na comfort of real things to talk
\nand tinker about, drawing off the restlessness
\nthat comes between Saturday nights.<\/p>\n
You could live a good winter here,
\nrent rooms in any grey weathered house
\nand watch the snow shift on porch chairs
\nleft out ready for spring. Eat venison
\nand brown gravy at the Branding Iron
\nevery Sunday, and walk it off
\non the ridge behind the old copper mine
\nwith that pack of scavenger horses and mules
\nsnorting at your heels, and your own breath clouds
\nfrozen at your lips like cartoon speech.
\nYou won\u2019t need much talk here
\nwhere the names of things get crystal
\nand definite as that frozen air, something to exchange
\nhand to mittened hand on the morning bridge.
\n\u201cNeighbor\u201d is the guy who takes your shift
\nthe day the baby\u2019s born. \u201cLove\u201d’s the years
\nof Saturday nights she\u2019s held your head above the john.<\/p>\n
When the sawmill shuts down, the quiet
\ngoes sharp and ebony behind a fine mesh of stars.
\nThe creek runs louder than the road then, a sound
\ndrawing you out to walk until the frost patterns your eyes,
\nand the cold burns in your blood like a hunger
\nfor coffee and wood smoke, turning you back to town.<\/p>\n
In one good winter, you could get so solitary here
\nthat you\u2019d forget the name for lonely,
\nuntil the spring came, surprised you
\nlike the sound of ice breaking under the bridge.
\nIt would be the day you swept the snow from porch chairs,
\nthe night you stayed past closing in the Branding Iron
\nwhile the waitress shared Wild Turkey on the house,
\nlet you talk until she turned the empty bottle over,
\nsmiling, handing you the news the pass was open,
\nlike a word she\u2019d dusted off that morning
\nand knew you\u2019d just turned foreign enough to use.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sibyl James<\/a> has published nine books, including The Adventures of Stout Mama<\/a><\/em> (fiction), China Beats<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>(poetry) and, most recently,\u00a0The Last Woro Woro to Treichville: A West African Memoir.<\/em> <\/a>She has taught in the US, China, Mexico, and–as Fulbright professor–Tunisia and Cote d’Ivoire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Twisp, Washington Back east, they\u2019d call these foothills mountain, but you learn to map a different scale here where the road west of you keeps rising into a pass closed Thanksgiving to April, where yards of rusted Ford bodies … Continue reading