You hitched a thousand miles
north from San Francisco
Hiked up the mountainside a mile in the air
Thy little cabin – one room –
walled in glass
Meadows and snowfields, hundreds of peaks.
We lay in our sleeping bags
talking half the night;
Wind in the guy-cables summer mountain rain.
Next morning I went with you
as far as the cliffs,
Loaned you my poncho – the rain across the shale –
You down the snowfield
flapping in the wind
Waving a last goodbye half hidden in the clouds
To go on hitching
clear to New York;
Me back to my mountain and far, far, west.
from The Back Country