Poetry: Map of Mortality

{Originally published in the Spring 2022 issue of VoiceCatcher}

The illusion is the rising green horizon

where farmland

meets sky. Coast, Cascade mountains

bounding our valley, unseen.

This home is no prairie where rainbows,

uncanny wonders arise. Our

peaks so imposing they stymie migrations:

illness, mortality, rage—

the slow progress of regress

the farther we roam from our mirror

pond. Driving over a hillock,

I see to the east,

newly frosted with snow,

Mt. Hood; to the west,

another rugged artery, its own illusions,

my life before I turned pioneer, drying my shoes

each night by this fire,

each morning my back to the sun.