Nathaniel Mohatt

Tanana River Lookout

I guess all I want is to tell you
about my home, our home, the wild
space spread as far as one can see,
how when you stand at the lookout,
hand above your eyes to shade the sun
and follow the land, its rolls and sharp falls,
the undulation of tree to tundra to bog,
and the knowledge of what you do not see
scattered among the needles and leaves,
how when at the edge, far above
the wide and meandering silt-stream,
you cover the scene with memories.
Your patience astounds me.
I recognize within myself the capacity
for love. I recognize your terrifying calm
threatening my drive. I guess that my home
is unsure about its role, about me and you
and this body we inhabit, stopping
then driving, driving highway to highway.

 

Whiteouts

The first I remember
I was 10 years old, returning
to Fairbanks from Circle Hot Springs
and spring break with the Siedschlags—
two station wagons, 120 miles
over ice-packed dirt.

The White Mountains
are not high, but tall and known
for hard weather. Jim Bennett, once
on the Yukon Quest thousand mile dog sled race,
crossing Eagle Summit,
ninety degrees below zero,
was blown off the top and back to the bottom.

He pulled his sled and team up the pass again
to cross and fall and sleep and live
out of the wind and stinging snow.
He made it to the Hot Springs
and dropped from the race that year.

We should have stayed,
but break was over and work and school
the next day were too necessary.
As the highway descends to the south,
off the summit and into the mountains,
a near-sheer fall a thousand feet
braces the road.

Matt and I were joking as the storm sat
about driving off that cliff
we could not see, not sure
which side of the road we were on, and
laughing, when a plow clearing from the south
nearly brushed us off
then turned to lead us down.

--

Again on Eagle Summit,
from Circle Hot Springs,
but this time with my fiancé
driving in the early winter—and this time
the weather had been bad for days.

We drove to see if the pass was open.
The whiteout hit as we crested
and turned to descend
back to politics and social science,
work and school, Fairbanks,
from our personal weekend.

This time adult, wary and tired,
not wanting to return, thinking
of people gone missing,
cars buried down mountain ‘til spring,
we chose instead to stay
as long as necessary in the satin sheets
and the 100 degree pool.

As we left the white
a packed truck came up,
I suspect they succeeded.
Days later the paper reported
a car found and three people rescued.
The colored reflection of their car
had caught a plowman’s eye
three days after driving
through the curve and over the face.

--

The third whiteout I traveled was
on Chilkat Pass in the St. Elias Mountains.
Jamie and I were moving to Juneau,
had stayed the night in Haines Junction,
the Yukon Territories, Canada.

A 150-mile mountain road reaches
from Haines Junction to Haines,
a gold rush town between
the haughty and graceful mountains,
the ocean spit of the Inside Passage,
and the ferry to Juneau that evening.
The night before our reservation
the pass was closed; in the morning
rough, but open.

There would be plows of course
and other cars in the isolated ice.
Unlike Eagle Summit
there are no cliffs on Chilkat Pass,
though these mountains are
the tallest in North America.

The Haines Cut-off runs mostly
through open land above the tree line
skirting 6000 foot peaks and watching
the giants further in. The scent
of ice caudles the lungs. Wild animals
gone, their food buried
beneath the ill-defined white-scape.

A third of the highway and
the whiteout raged. Four hours
without another vehicle, without anything,
Our only guide reflective poles
lining the road side for navigation
in deep snow and thick wind.

 

Reorientation

It’s just like you to get lost in the woods. Have you ever tried licking your finger?
Raising it to wind? Divining for water? Following clouds

as they skirt the edge of atmosphere? I remember when the earth lay flat, you
could reach her end without need to fast, apples and cherries lined each route.

How did I find you sitting on rock, surrounded by moss-dripping trees, drawing
reorientation spells on the forest’s floor, figuring that if you turned yourself around

on your own some unstable being should be willing to tune you up again? I would be
happy to show you the way to the supermarkets, rows of cabbage, stacks

of candied fruit, but I am not the one to take you to abandoned cherry orchards, overgrown
with dandelions. How can you possibly expect a log cabin

to conclude on your trail? What kind of trees offer branches for shade, trunks for stools,
bodies for walls? The cabin is full of leaks and must, there are more unstable beings.

There is no way to predict what will happen among the Douglas Fir and Hemlock,
which paths will lead to bracken, which to a further thousand years of ice,

which rains will fall on the canopy, where we will find water for our thirsts. You are
unwitting enough to discover again the empty grove that spoke in tongues

and wrapped your mind in satin sheets. You are sometimes in that grove, in a raven circle,
all paths lie before you and you want nothing to do, you look up

from your bed of ferns to smell salt air, the leaves have gone, you are surrounded now
by ocean, that’s good, you think. The wind circulates, your chest becomes a sail,

you begin to understand the raven croaks and warbles, the distant flutes of seagulls
spotting meat, you pray to be born again, this time, with one question—which river?

 

Sasquatch

My dad went riding one day in the canyons
behind Spring Creek, a place where old waters
have transformed the bare pasture land
into a maze of pine trees and lakes.
He passed the quiet into the more quiet,
rode until the sun cast only more on the outer
surfaces of earth and the canyons basked in shade.
His brown-coated companion gladly loped
out of ear and eye shot of sour men,
and just as his mind joined with her rhythm
she stopped. A stream studded with shrubs,
like matted fur grown around gossiping rocks,
cut across their way. He paused there
just long enough for his senses to return.
Seeing a trail wind up the canyon face,
he decided to climb out and follow
the ridge line home, but she refused,
reared up and backed. He searched the ground
for rattle snakes, but did not see or hear
a warning tremble. He looked ahead for bears,
knowing that none are left on the prairie,
but saw no sign of their return. He breathed
the moistening dusk into his stomach, felt
briefly what he took for wet fur on his arm,
but looking down saw his arm covered only
in sweat and dust. He swears still that nothing
else was there, not even a cricket, yet she
refused, responded instead to a keener sense.

 

so this is where I think / take a walk
for Matthew Thomas Russell

at Outer Point beach / got some earth for you /
or more like a handful of pebbles and small pieces
of mussel and clam shells / all damp /
shiny crumbling in my hand / the mussels look like indigo mirrors
strewn with purple and jade-green stones
/ these are for you /

the quick path to the beach
passes through a dwarfed forest / florescent green moss
covers the trees / I’ll send you a picture and some bog earth
come spring / for now the forest ground
is mostly covered in old snow and ice

I played in banger heaven there
all rocks and sticks / the ocean / then breaking through
the brush and into the forest / skipped stones /
threw wood for the mutt to chase and balanced rocks /
took small, thin ones and spun them vertically
into the air to dunk in the water / th’lnnk /
the sound means more than not splashing

couldn’t play the ultimate challenge
/ as my friend Theo taught me /
where two of us sit on the sand
facing each other / legs splayed out / rock between /
and bang on it in successive turns
with hand picked sticks until it is buried

I couldn’t because we weren’t on a sand beach /
to be honest / and because I was the only banger
present / my wife and her friend
both seven months pregnant / had you been there
we would have smoked in the trees and hung
on the massive root system of a fallen giant / If you come
this summer / I promise / we will fall
through moss and hang on roots

there’s a protective aura here / it’s as if
Juneau is hugged by these bits of land /
the mountains on the mainland and the mountains
of Douglas Island create a sheltered corner /
the Tlingit Indians used to summer just north
at Auke Bay for the fishing / then winter here
where downtown decomposes
rapidly into the rainforest

on the drive back / at False Outer Point /
just before rounding south into the narrow channel and the warm shadow
of Mt. Juneau and Mt. Jumbo /
got a great view of the Mendenhall Glacier
rising speckled aquamarine / and the Towers behind her
sheer peaks three thousand feet over the ice / the sun was out /
saw the ferry leaving Auke Bay
and entering the rough water of Lynn Canal

the sky is white and it’s raining / Richard Hugo
comes to mind in Montana / Gary Snyder
in the Sierras / and my job in politics
keeps me thinking of John Haines’ poem
/ The Owl Will Call Again / echoing
“we sit and pick
the bones of mice
as the long moon
drifts towards Asia.”

a couple hours after our walk
I experienced a moment of clarity / I don’t
mean to sound clichéd, but the best thing about this place
is the soft collision between natural
and unnatural cycles of death / it’s when
you spend an hour in a big box store / running
into other shoppers / kicking your shopping cart
to unstick the wheels / cursing the cashier
when she doesn’t accept Visa / and then

you step outside / the grip in your muscles
just fades / you see clouds
oozing onto the mountains / you feel them rotting
through every nervous thing we try to erect
the weather’s a tad shitty today / though not shitty enough
that I’d feel tough were I to go for a walk /
I think instead I’ll stay in and unpack /
work on settling on the inside / at some point
I’ll go to the store to fill in the gaps / potting soil
is on sale / two dollars a bag / the house warming plant
I bought for Jamie needs to be replanted

take care for now / I’ll build a fire on the beach soon
and send you the ashes /
your friend always / love - nate