Enjoy Being Human

Jamie Samdahl

Upon receiving news of his death

I drive straight for the black wall
of cloud a massive flock of starlings
expanding and collapsing like a lung

The road is impassable flooded
with mirage so blue I take my shoes off
to wade

The holy white cows watch my soles blister
on the asphalt wise after their season of starving
witness to the worst of animal catastrophe

Climbing in the Rockies

at timberline the god of my childhood meets me
with outstretched arms made of wind
sweeps off my hat braids my wild hair
offers me earaches comfort

October snow flickers
at the edge of my vision
the winter light pales and pales
already this winter light

this god the wind pushes me
down the alpine slope I stumble
over parry clover leftovers
sleeping ptarmigans glint of ground quartz

when he left I was prescribed the mountains
as a cure I take the pills too just in case  


About Jamie Samdahl

Contributor headshot, Jamie Samdahl

Jamie Samdahl is a poet and naturalist from Princeton, Massachusetts. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in Rattle, Washington Square Review, Noble/ Gas Qtrly, Mithila Review, Mountain Record: The Zen Practitioner's Journal, and elsewhere. In the spring of 2013, she was named winner of the 90th Annual Glascock Intercollegiate Poetry Prize. She can be found on the web at jamiesamdahl.com.

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