Take a Hike

         after “Bracken” by Kai Carlson-Wee

Don’t go in search of two bald eagles

That fly over your Rialto Beach

Campsite, stretching their talons out

For easy landings. Don’t go looking for

Bright green sea anemones

And lazy looking sea stars. Forget

About spotting seals in the surf,

Their wet gray heads like

Bobbing driftwood. What you find

Will be unasked for—the muddy trail

That turns to snow pack in late June,

Your clothes growing chain-mail heavy

With the weight of endless rain.

The brilliant blue lake that you take

A selfie at won’t even be the right lake—

You stopped too soon, the trail markers

Askew and misleading. You’ll know

You’re there when a young black bear

Crosses your path, cocks his head at you

Quizzically, and trundles off into the brush—

Leaving you with a racing pulse

And a new story to tell.

Visitation

My red-cheeked babe, fresh

from the boob, pushes up on feet still

folded, strong and smiling.

He has no sense of 3 a.m.

and how the house sleeps around us.

He cannot care yet and this dumb

thought buoys me in the cocoon

of lamplight. While he eats,

I read aloud

from a poetry book and he hears

about death for the first time. He is as far

away from knowing it as he will ever be.

This, a mother’s willful

assumption, the closest I come to prayer.

A banging near the back door

rouses me and I carry the baby over

to find a racoon has upended

our trash can. I tap on the glass and he turns,

unafraid, still chewing. There, on his hind legs,

he clears his throat and speaks. He could tell us about

the woods behind our house and his animal life

but instead: Good luck, good luck.