At midmorning, we decided to hike to the high elevation
pools up along Wrights Creek. It was a drought year but we
found a place deep enough, a sheer cliff face slicing along the
pool's longest edge, and you could climb down, slide from a
smooth rock into frigid water the color of long-neglected tea.
The water had been so long waiting for us there, unmoving,
and its cold a stinging numbness to fight through, but I said
come on Hunter, not thinking he would panic and push us
both under the mahogany surface where it's silent and vast
like outer space — a thing I noticed later in the dreams that
came again and again — how there was a calm beneath all the
thrashing about, and I was trapped there forever, as
emptiness sucked at my feet, and I dropped endlessly. The
calm though to itself, I knew this would happen, always, but
I pushed it down, and in the darkness my one free arm lit up
like a torch searching for the smooth cliff face.
pools up along Wrights Creek. It was a drought year but we
found a place deep enough, a sheer cliff face slicing along the
pool's longest edge, and you could climb down, slide from a
smooth rock into frigid water the color of long-neglected tea.
The water had been so long waiting for us there, unmoving,
and its cold a stinging numbness to fight through, but I said
come on Hunter, not thinking he would panic and push us
both under the mahogany surface where it's silent and vast
like outer space — a thing I noticed later in the dreams that
came again and again — how there was a calm beneath all the
thrashing about, and I was trapped there forever, as
emptiness sucked at my feet, and I dropped endlessly. The
calm though to itself, I knew this would happen, always, but
I pushed it down, and in the darkness my one free arm lit up
like a torch searching for the smooth cliff face.
Katherine Case is a poet, letterpress printer and former Peace Corps Volunteer whose poetry has appeared in numerous national publications. She owns and operates Meridian Press in Reno, Nevada, where she publishes poetry chapbooks, broadsides and limited-edition prints of her hand-carved, multiple-color linoleum carvings.