Rainier

Apparition of ice and stone:
How it swells above the highway,
over small cars and upturned eyes.

It sits on high. Pristine
and remote from me,
exalts me and cuts me
down to size.

                  *   *   *

At work I write: The fetal breech was grasped
and elevated to the level of the hysterotomy.
Document this delivery
despite impediments.

I don’t write: It came out loud,
downy with hair, automatic in its Moro,
triumphant and defiant.

                  *   *   *

I dress in the dark for work
when a plague is sweeping.
Some want to cut it down to size,
from a terror swell to nothing.

But better to stay afraid:
Wear seven layers of plastic against it
and peel it away, room to room.

It has cut me down to size.

                  *   *   *

Mothers on oxygen gestate
in rooms with mountain views,
and the mountain hides in fog most days.
Easy to forget it’s there all the time,
serene in strength or decay.

It watches the snowmelt coursing in rivers and gutters,
and secret waterfalls trickling through ferns,
and my headlights winding home.