Poem: Garapito Loop

Of all the poems I’ve written, this is one of my favorites. It is based on a solo night hike above Los Angeles.

“Garapito Loop” was originally published in Wilderness House Literary Review by one of my very favorite editors: Irene Koronas. She’s brilliant and original. Enough said.


OWL

PS: yes, there is a certain word that is mis-spelled in this poem. It works the way it is, conjures a certain character.

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Garapito Loop

a bright net hugs the land
as far as you can see.
only imaginable
are the busy creatures
it has swallowed.
in this grip of the electric,
somewhere,
dwells everyone:
a neighbor you
undress daily with thoughts;
a gas clerk whose smile once
mattered; chocolate
on the faces of boys
in a park.

from your perch of stones
like stegosaur humps,
you might as well be a satellite,
or the squint
of an orbital mystic.
much has passed
on this dying sandstone:
natives in labor,
cascades of them,
birthing a commotion of tribes
while condors swing
over antelopes
and pug-faced bears.

it’s as if you had snoozed
while chanting, and woke
to find the Earth lost--
hidden under burns every night,
a valley of steady fire,
and prisoners in the flames.



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