An Easy Dayhike, Mt. Rainier
         for Nancy, Ben, and Jeffrey
        

Bright mushroom clouds of yellow lilies flame
at Eunice Lake where under jutting peaks,
we snack and muse on Jeff, our older son,

who studies poetry, the climbing art that twines
the word with time, then note fresh deer tracks in
the mud as switchbacks steepen into blueberries.

The lookout tower’s locked but we can see
through glass, a gas stove, bunks, a log book
(1986-93),

as drizzle comes. We linger, hoping
that the mountains will de-cloud and talk about
Ben’s seizures, never tamed—a recent one

that spun him down the hall, whirled him into
a concrete wall. The school nurse found him
on the floor, knocked cold. I got the call and

in her office—blood dribbled from his nose,
beside his eye a crimson bruise, one tooth
a vicious fang, one broken straight across,

he sat and hardly moved. The razor ridge
to Tolmie Peak, we skip, and so descend
through old-growth deliquescing under rain.

At Eunace Lake again, the deer himself
stares back across his shoulder at our stares.
Later, Ben’s dentist sealed the pulp, squeezed

plastic from a tube to patch the cracked
stalactites in his mouth. Headache gone,
he took it patiently, while black light

hardened plasti into tooth, or almost tooth.
As we approach the trailhead, sun breaks through.
A rainbow lies on Mowich Lake. It floats

beneath our feet—a sign perhaps, though who
believes in signs? The world is flux, each day
a setting forth. Our trip’s a cache of weathers

like the sky. Six hours into this ‘easy
hike,’ wasted and refreshed, we reach the rented
Sunray, drink our Diet Cokes and split a peach.