Hiking alone in the Sierra Nevada
I stopped one evening in Dragon Basin
Above treeline by a small stream
Trickling down a flaw in the granite
On the floor of this crack were
Lush little lawns green moss
Furring the banks krummholz bonsai
Clustering over low black falls
Transparent water glossed on top
Standing there I looked
Over the fellfield basin a cupped
Hand of stone catching rocks
Inlaid with a tapestry of plants
Lichen sedge and saxifrage
Tippling green the pebble all bare
Under jagged ridges splintering the sky
Beside the rill I made my camp
Ground cloth foam pad sleeping bag
Pack for a pillow stove at my feet
In the failing light my dinner steaming
To the gurgle of water and the sky
And the stars popping into existence
Over the crest of the range still
Alpenglow pink spiking indigo
The line between the colors pulsing
As they faded to two shades of black the number
Of stars amazing the Milky Way perfectly
Articulating my fall up and into sleep
And was never tired
Dreamed the same dreams
And heard the rockslides rattle and thunder
In the throats of these living mountains
Something woke me I put on my glasses
I lay looking up at stars and the Perseids
Meteors darting across the starry black
Every few heartbeats every direction
Fast slow long short far near
White or some shade of red some
Seeming to hiss slow down break up
Firing great sparks away to the sides
In their wakes I watched held by granite
Entrained to a meteor shower beyond
Any I had imagined possible the stars
Still fixed in the places lighting
The great shattered granite walls
Of the basin all pale witness
Together to fireworks one
Plowing the air right over the peaks
Fizzing sparks over Fin Dome
One shot down just overhead
Wow I cried and sat up to look
As a great BOOM knocked me into
A dark land sparked by fire
Fires burning My God
I cried oh my God oh my God
Struggling to get out of bag into boots
On my feet out stumbling around a smell
Like autumn leaves burning the past
I took my water bag and crashed about
Quenching fires that ignited
As I ran to the next oh my God
And ran to the stream and stopped thinking
That here was the action of my life
Putting out fires where there was no wood
Vision crisscrossed with afterimages
Of the final fall green bolts
In every blink of the eye finally
I stood in the dark understanding
There was no need to hurry
I came to a chunk of vivid orange
A stone standing alone on a slab
A meteorite still glowing with heat
I sat down before it
I calmed my breathing
Cross-legged I watched it glow
I put my hand out to it
I could feel its heat some distance
Away the pure color of fire
Films feathering on its surface
Incandescent in the night
Illuminating the glacial polish
Of the slab reflecting in that black
Mirror the night quiet the air still
Slightly smoky the stars again
Fixed in their places the meteor
Shower past its peak the stream
Chuckling as it had all along
Oblivious to the life in the sky
A companion of sorts as I watched
The burning visitation warm
My hands as it filmed over
Darkening in its orange
Brilliance until it was both orange
And black I went to get my sleeping
Bag to drape me in my vigil
Sleep gone again so many nights
Like that but this time justified by
My visitor cooling aglow black flakes
Crusting over growing
Orange darker underneath
The moon rose over the jagged peaks
Bathed the basin in its cool light
Flecked the water in the stream
Dark air holding invisible light
The meteorite now black over orange
Still warm still the center
Of all that basin dark on its slab
Of polished pale granite
In the dawn the rock was purest black
Of course I took it home with me
And put it on mantelpiece as a
Memento of that night and a mark
Of where we stand in the world but
I will always remember how it felt
The night it shot down out of the sky
And it glowed orange as I sat beside it
And it warmed me like a little sun
Kim Stanley Robinson: I Say Good-Bye to Mars
