In Pursuit of Precision

This lake could have been given
any writhing name: feldspar flush; 
thrush landing; sun-dappling-happily 
off the lick and the sheen.

I say its name for nothing, 
a becoming yet becoming. 
A tarn is time reminding one to breathe.

Clearly, and at once, I see 
me: 

an atomic dust devil swirling,
turning, turning grander with 
every blasted blink. Quick. 

Freeze. 

A molecular scatter plot among
the firn and the scree. 
A belonging among
a bellowing trapeze.

---

I wrote the beginning of this poem sitting in the spot where the first video was taken. I was struck by the name, Copper Lake. I found it a bit lackluster and not representative of what we actually found there. (A good thing! Beautiful!)

Because it is a return to the naming theme that I couldn’t stop thinking about a few months ago, I opened Landmarks by Robert Macfarlane again to find words for the specificities of the highlands. (For those who don’t remember, Landmarks is a narrative and collected glossary of hyper-specific words in cultures throughout England.)

Quickly, I learned I was sitting among a beautiful Tarn (a mountain lake or pond Northern English) and staring out at firn (old consolidated snow leftover from the previous season). Despite the insufficiency of the name “Copper Lake”, one thing I love about backpacking is the way you rapidly establish a new leixcon of specificity. On the trail, slinging peak names and campgrounds, water sources and washout becomes commonplace and perhaps more importantly, common to the place. It provides the honor of communicating directly, if only for a while.

I used the word dust devil as well to summon a word from the flatlands that has little business being in the highlands.

The molecular/becoming stuff is rattling around in my brain from some of the recent reading I’ve been doing on Complexity Science and some adjacent life experiences that dabble in the quantum conversation.

Here, poet Jorie Graham shares the thought of how every time we close an eye and open it agin we are a new being.

Here’s the poem I sent out Saturday from this same trip.

Thanks for reading.