North of the Pole Star
North of the Pole Star
by Casey Bush
if you enter
these mountains alone
with only compass
and a map
let me know
I’ll meet you
half way
to half way
so we can play craps
with calculus
when we reunite
beneath
the Dipper’s handle
we will flip
the Moon’s
one sided coin
until a red maple
leaf in the river
floats around
that furthest bend
when we
rendezvous under
the Little Bear’s eye
we will smoke
flowers
soaked in blood
until our cliff face
trail deteriorates
into goat paths
and bird nests
Sounds like a reminiscence of a summer trek through the mountains. I like how they tie in the moon and constellations to what what the perceive on earth; especially in the second stanza combining the Dipper with the maple leaf (big and small, night and day). The end takes the vertical “cliff face trail” down to the more horizontal “goat paths” of civilization: a still sensitized natural way out of the heights.