Chimney Bluffs

Here, where you didn't expect it, is the highest point

On the deepest lake, a modest elevation which nonethe-

less

Provokes a satisfactory surprise: there's no need for

Reviewing more of the shore than this. From your

current

Position you can see the wide spaces between the waves;

Far from "trooping" toward you, the waves seem to

come

Distracted, slow, breaking apart in separate accidents

On the narrow beach. You can see why a place like this

Might have been sacred to the Cayugas, and there's

something

Reassuring about that even though none of us knows for

sure.

There was a time when you thought the meaning of such

spots

Was necessary for survival, that it could be peeled off

Like the bark of a paper birch and used to transport us

In swift canoes past the hostile Iroquois. But your efforts

Convinced you at last that what's indigenous is also

By nature recalcitrant: the canoes were a lost art and

The ensuing confrontation failed to smoke out any

prophecies.

So there you were after the calamity, disappointed to

find,

Despite your investment of "blood, sweat and tears," that

There was no more meaning returned than was there

before.

Perhaps you thought it was useless to go on, that the

most

You could do was stand there marking time, that you

had

Reached, too early, the interminable final phase. I might

Be nice and say it was all part of your progress here

But of course you could have missed this place just as

You've missed so many others along the way. Yet here

you are,

And what you make of the occasion will be inevitable,

Knowing you. The edges aren't secure, but they are safe:

The withered clay is hunched in great shoulders against

The wind. Given the cloud cover that prevails, the bluffs

Appear as gray, and only in late afternoon or dawn

When the light comes in horizontally are the startling

Intricacies revealed. On the map it says the place is

"Undeveloped" but this beautiful erosion didn't happen

Overnight. Life curries its own patterns as it goes,

Dislodging first a pebble, a hunk of clay, the roots

Of a smooth dumb beech. You seldom see it happening,

Which explains why people don't wish on erosion the

way

They do on shooting stars; yet it's there, tracing

Delicate downfalls when your back is turned.

It's enough to come up on it suddenly like this,

To recognize its brilliant irregularities

And be left living-the sufficient remainder.