Alpenglow

(June 2021. I forgot to share this one chronologically, but noticed it on my bus walls the other day, so I’m posting it as if it’s new so people don’t miss it; eventually I’ll rearrange. Camped in Kremmling, Colorado, within sight of the sharp snowy peaks of the Continental Divide to the East, a friend taught me the word alpenglow as we were watching a sunset. Alpenglow is when the colorful setting sunlight hits the mountains to the east even after the sun has set to the west from our low vantage point. I got high that night and read Emily Dickinson’s poem ‘Each that we lose takes part of us; / A crescent still abides / Which like the moon, some turbid night / Is summoned by the tides.” That poem was written on my back left bus wall, the panel of leaving home, moonlight, sunsets, and memories. In a brain blast, the rhythm of that Emily poem and the new word alpenglow fused into this new poem, which I wrote directly on my wall in permanent marker. Normally I write more like Walt, and I rarely rhyme. In the context of the American poetic tradition, this poem is sort of about the turn from west to east, the idea of America as the sunset land and that the ‘east’ can be the new ‘west’ as we turn from the sunset to the direction from which we hope for sunrise. Indeed, west leads east, the future requires the past, death leads to rebirth, and pink alpenglow is a promise of resurrection. There’s a lot more nuance and meaning and potential interpretations of this poem, but I won’t overexplain it. The last thing I’ll say is that, on my bus walls, the first two lines are red and the last two lines are purple. Anyway, this one’s for you, Emily.)

Although the setting sun’s my heart
My wandering westward eye
Sees evening dreams and easter peaks
And alpenglow— and by—