Fine Thing

I am too fortunate for this world, which is so big

and sad, and cannot pretend,

even, to properly despair of it tonight.

What a fine thing, after all,

to be lucky and alive.

I would have a window, if I could,

in the middle of my chest,

which I could

look from, and sometimes open,

and let things in.

Then we drove West.

It had been Dorothy that, years ago, said: further West are the Bitterroot Mountains.

Montana, she told me, was the closest you could get on the green earth to GOD,

and Idaho, was ten thousand Montanas in one.

So we had no choice, and left in Mid-March. Drove straight through to Big Timber and

cried because we had not lived our whole lives in Montana.

We stayed three days, then drove on through Butte–

crossed over the Bitterroot range at five o’clock on a Wednesday–then on, into Idaho.

When we got to the border, we cried, too, crossing at Lolo Pass, because we had

wasted three days in Montana.

Just wait til we get to Wyoming, I said.

But we stayed. Near Payette Creek. Under North Loon Mountain,

about 5 miles East of McCall.

What will we do now? Dorothy asked, and started to sew.

I bought a horse in Cascade and rode it home.

Dorothy said, What did you do with the car?

Thank GOD we didn’t get to Wyoming, she said.

I’d come home in those days and all my clothes would be

ripped to shreds and spread out on the floor,

and Dorothy with the window wide open…

We had sixteen quilts and no clothes by November.

So we stayed in. And drank,

and put on weight,

and said things, some we regretted.

It’s true, Dorothy said: you find GOD in the mountains.

I said, GOD was in Montana. This is Idaho, my friend.

We knew spring came because the bulbs that we’d planted late November poked

green through black dirt. We knew they would be daffodils.

We bought new clothes and stayed up

later and later with the sun, until the days went on forever.

Then my horse died; it was June.

He fell and broke his leg so bad I had to

hobble him to town 6 miles just to

find a gun to shoot him.

I stayed up for three days and nights and howled.

Even in Idaho, Dorothy said, when I came home empty-bridled.

We opened the shop in August.

Threw our quilts onto tables and chairs, and outside, we

spread them on the lawn

and tacked them to the post, in the yard.

Dorothy said, Now we’ll wait. And very soon, it was true, the Cowboys came.

They’d stop for a meal, have a look at the quilts,

and they wouldn’t say much till they got real drunk,

and when they left they would

kiss one or both of us, and tell us they’d be round again.

That they hadn’t a use for a quilt on the trail, but if we could wait–

if we didn’t have much expectation.

Dorothy had her eye on one, wilder than the rest.

In September the whole river valley was washed out

by a storm so severe we thought the world might end.

In the morning I said, To think that just the other day

I thought of having babies here.

You’ll write, won’t you,

when you get to Wyoming? Dorothy said,

when I packed, in November, to go.

And tell me the things that I’m missing, she said.

Never myself having been.

I could send you some money, I said.

You could follow me there.

But she stamped her

foot on the ground, and shook her head, no.

You might have been happy, she said,

so I left her.

By the porch with a half-finished quilt

and a Cowboy,

leaning on a post in the yard.