Dalles Mountain Road

A poem about my favorite place.

Here we lie, you and me, in this patch of suspended sunlight,
hidden by the mass of lupine and sunflowers
that paint these hills purple and gold.
In the distance, Mt. Hood reaches upward
and scrapes its white head across the sky.
But I'm not looking at that. I'm looking at you
as you hand me a purple stalk of lupine and say:
"It smells like poetry. Try it."
So I do. And it does.
And suddenly you're naked beside me,
your fingers tiptoeing across my chest
your white summer dress on one side of you
the old abandoned house on the other,
as I begin to notice the pieces everywhere.
Pieces of you.
In the wild flowers. In the diving summer sunlight,
in the translucent sky that kisses the mountains
and mirrors the Columbia River.
In the broken glass and sunken floors
of the abandoned house to our right.
In the torrent of hills that keep us hidden,
here in this bright, bright music.