Mountain poem for a woman

A poem that appeared in the print journal Bellowing Ark, which is no longer with us:

Mountain poem for a woman

who died climbing

Thundercells and lightning all around the valley

playing my guitar out on the grass

swatting mosquitoes and singing sad songs

looking in at the people in other trailers

drinking and watching tv

cool wind and an open patch of stars

I didn’t know you

our helicopter flew your body back down

you weighed nothing

and we flew you out in a bag

attached to a cable and hook

you fell two hundred feet

maybe more

your partner had her phone

though it was too late even then

even before the rangers could get there

your friends seemed like good people

they cried not because they didn’t understand

but because they did

that you were doing something you felt passionate about

and why should someone die doing that?

and yet what other way would there be to go?

standard procedure is to land the body away

from the helispot

where the coroner can pick it up discreetly

but they walked over to look at you

to open the bag and see you one last time

I couldn’t

I would have liked you

I have always liked the idea of women like you

physical and strong and independent

I stayed where I was

it was sunny there

and wrens kept circling around us

picking up small pieces of grass and dirt