Donner Summit Snow Sheds

The air, with vaporous icy blades,

Carves out one’s breath.

High-up on the rocky verge,

Clear blue forever beckons

Beyond the gaping maw of Tunnel #6.

Punching a hole through

To blackened infinity, the bore-hole,

Hand-blasted out of living rock by

Long departed Chinese workers,

Beckons with the adrenal allure of

Any forbidden fruit to be found

In Nature’s primal garden.

There are ghosts, oh yes!

They flit through the chill airiness

Ever unseen but acutely felt

In the brief passage of time.

Below, the azure bowl of Donner Lake

Sits, postcard-perfect and distally calm,

Amidst sylvan forests of verdant green.

Finally, we emerge, half fearful still

Of phantasmagoric trains that once

Chuffed their way through the dank

Mountain’s vaginal recesses, perched above

The macabre site that now marks

The Donner Party’s final soiree,

Some thirty years removed.

The experience reminds me of

Every single woman I’ve ever known

And a few I haven’t…