Hawksnest by Adam Whipple

I am still trying to find
a pathway through air
to each of the tiny lights
piercing archipelago
along dark ramparts
of a night-hidden mountain
brooding above the old ski resort
in garments of cold cloud,

their promised cocoon of warmth
something I saw
but couldn’t touch.

My feet crunched and slid
on blister-bright snow
beneath the black
ceiling of starless eve,
poised peregrine
over a settled oeuvre
of spotlit slaloms,
dogtrot runs veining
the pressing stands
of bone-jarring highland oak.

Joey had taught me the basics;
I was quick study at a hockey stop
and headed for blue square slopes,
rushing headlong as benediction
again and again until
the wet chill of midnight
passed into my shinbones,
seeped through rib-slats,
belling the hours’ toll
on even my young body,
humbled inside a parka
by my mother’s insistence.

Then I stood ragged
atop the elbow
of Merlin run, suddenly tired,
seeing again the diamonds distant
of offered firelight and feeling
the long teeth of an outlaid descent,
how far I still had to go.

Adam Whipple is a musician, poet, and author living in Knoxville, Tennessee, and a graduate of Carson-Newman University. His essays and poetry have appeared on The Rabbit Room, in Curator Magazine, Blue Mountain Review, The Pigeon Parade Quarterly, and Analogue. His albums can be found on all major digital outlets.