Thick and green, the hills rise
on each other's shoulders. High ridges disappear in fog
make me wish I was born of water. At the divide, I taste the cool ocean air,
the way a deer finds a salt lick, and roller coaster down a narrow road
that does not believe in a straight line. Blackberry vines
crawl through barbed wire fences. Small towns occur like a whim.
As if in a coma, they merely survive. I tune in the only station
and listen to country western. Static gradually drowns the singer out.
Rounding a corner, he pops to the surface for another breath,
simply to sink back still singing. Fir shadows lace the road.
Bracken cascades embankments. At the next curve, a farmhouse is half finished--
boards weathered raw. Chickens roost in a gutted Chevy. Scattered among these hills, families
rely on small private lumber mills, the disability or unemployment check,
the killing of an out of season elk.