ISSUE: Spring 1990
Above the fumes of paper mills,
tarred shacks ringed with truck parts
she lugged her green cocoon.
By the bare cliff
where snow still clung to shadows, she knelt
tightening wires across a skeleton of metal.
What was she thinking, so alone
as she plunged against the wind’s resistance?
When she pushed deeper into the blue
shade of her wing, cutting
toward the populated valley,
did she hear as never before
one song pulsing from the summit’s tower
through her harp of cables?
Did she glimpse the whole mountain
turning green beneath her?
The last drop was short
and without prayer.
Roofs rushed up like crows.
Power lines twanged with the jolt.
When the hardhatted crew found her
she hung above them, depending
on nothing but wires, the blue sheet
hovering above her like a moth.
