This is not about what happened,

of which I have no right to speak.

It’s of reading of it in the Green Hall

psychology library, where I

checked out books – and of seeing them

in-between, the theater students in gym shoes and

flip-flops, walking up that mountain in May,

tired from the night before.

It’s about knowing first-hand how weather changes

and how big a mountain is – bigger still

when you need to get off. And not knowing,

but yes, knowing even that, how it is to be a

teacher unraveling after rational plans,

jumping up and down in the snow.

I still see at night the two lying talking

in the cave, that world of ice that keeps us warm.