Daily Crossword Puzzle Poem Draft for 8/14 on 8/17 in the Wallowas


Skate quickly over the soft spots
calculate often but smell the calla
edge your lawn and dream Egypt
believe Bach and Bartok, the basics
beset you, your dreams are knives
that skid or cut downhill like skis.
Identify skinks, forget the martins.
I think you forgot to count that lap.
In Renaissance we were beset by boils
the best of times for you Leona
Send your barbs aloft gentle angler
into this bone-cold stream. Drag
another river for the man, the van,
but he is somewhere dry, renamed.
Do not underestimate your demise
for I am bossy and not your son
Oh hon the fan blades pull me nicer
pass the ice and disregard the datum
it's a one or zero, not a two
and you are who I've gained.
Energy pulses, the egrets emit
nothing extraordinary, the oriole
does not live here, you are Aries
bow and all. Drop your shawl and call
your extraterrestrial minions.
---

A little bit garbled and odd, the above, as am I. Yesterday we drove from Pullman to Lewiston, Idaho, then up and up and then he stopped the car. I thought, "a lookout, yes!" Such a good idea, and I brought out my camera. He unhooked his bicycle from the rack, and rode the winding road to the bottom. And now we're in a coffee shop in Joseph, Oregon.

Yesterday we hiked up from Wallowa Lake - I led, I'd been here a month before, up the Joseph Trail, except I didn't take the right turn, and we hiked up and up, and the suspension bridge over the west fork of the Wallowa River did not materialize no matter how I willed it. We'd been walking more than two hours when I asked backpackers coming down the trail if the bridge was just ahead. No it wasn't, no matter how many details I singled out to inquire about. I so wanted Jim to see that bridge. The backpackers said there was a great lookout over the river about 35 meters ahead, so we went, and took pictures. We were planning to get up early this morning to hike up to stand on that suspension bridge, but when we woke up it was 8:35.