For Josh Baugher
The river that carved a valley from the sandstone barely changed
Since the first curious landsman walked astonished into the canyon
Eight thousand years later we live with the decisions of bureaucrats
And missionaries who ignored and redacted the indigenous words
And renamed it after the Jerusalem fortress David conquered
And renamed after the place nearest the divine palace of his lord
Not at the palace but as close as possible to its celestial dazzle
Not at the palace but as close to the revelations as permitted
Climb from the level morning stairs worn or blasted into riven cliffs
Pilgrims in sparse miniature below will reach this height and forget
The quaint vulgarity of human architecture has no blueprint for this
Condors with ten-foot wingspans wheel through stringent daylight
To them no one looks much bigger than the scurrying chipmunks
That arrived at their misappropriated name from the Ojibwe word
Some Englishman thought sounded similar to chit and mink
In this mud-stone colossus the most meager inheritance is empire
Lookouts lumber over rust-beige ombre of slickrock and the words
Of the murdered Russian whose plateaus loom and fingers cling
To any lofty crag large enough for parched and twisted toeholds
Mulling the rituals of rigid men who renamed Petersburg to Leningrad
In this loge apart from interrogators whose windowless rooms only open
By forced confession the blessed biting-sweet scent of pinyon admits
That someone thought tourists would never want to visit this place
If they could not pronounce the indigenous words for the river canyon
When exiled Mandelstam knew Saint John at Patmos wrote the Book
Of Revelations in a cave not frighted by its seduction or his banishment
His residence capitulated to the words lowered under lamplight
Here is a dogeared and torn 1975 used copy of out-of-print poems
Bought first by a high school librarian in Texarkana Texas who knew
No meek student at this overlook could be exiled from anywhere
Christian Teresi is a poet and translator whose work has appeared in many literary journals, including AGNI, The American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, The Literary Review, Literary Hub, Narrative, and Subtropics. He lives in Washington, DC and works for an international education and cultural nonprofit.
Image: “Greener” by Danni Louise
Pine Hills Review 