Six Days After 9/11, Escaping the Dread by Nils Peterson

Travel Essay/ Poems:

After the 9/11 attack, my wife and I found ourselves on the first Lufthansa flight out of San Francisco. We had planned with a dozen others to go hiking in the Austrian Alps for a holiday, but the exploding towers changed everything. All flights cancelled, then started again. Someone on television said try your travel agent instead of airline. I called, found 2 tickets available on United instead of Lufthansa. Called our friends, but no more seats. A lucky moment.

I could no longer do the serious hikes, but I could walk around the town. At lunch, I heard the sound of bells, looked out the cafe door, and saw walking down the street a dozen beautiful cows, horns festooned with streamers of braided blossoms. The waitress said it was a ritual done each year as they brought down the cows from the high pastures to winter in the valley.

Ritual

Mid September early snow, – so,

from the high pastures a dozen cows,

horns streaming with flowers,

flow with heavy grace down

a street lined with racks of discounted

summer clothes. Suddenly, all shops

are ski shops.

Next day

Early morning dark. I lie in bed

shades pulled back. Through the fog,

a sinuous twist of lights tracing

a road down the mountain

back and forth, back and forth.

Here, between up and down

one moves sidewise.

I had William Stafford’s The Way It Is with me and imagined him as an in-town companion.

William Stafford in Mayrhofen

He would have liked the muteness

of the morning fog, the light, the coffee.

He would have liked one piece of strudel

without the whipped cream. He would not

have bought a feathered hat, but would

have admired those who wore them.

Walking through the streets, he would

have understood the people.

Some he would have liked.

Ongoingness

Beneath the high thrust of snow, rock, ice –

small valley things – a wren in a tree full of pears,

a bee, warm in the afternoon sun tending

window box flowers, grass carrying on being grass.

Yet even the green

of the grass carries

autumnal darkness

or is it …?

end of summer skirmish

night-snow crept down the mountain

morning firs hurl back a green defense

how many strides would

my seven-league boots

take to reach the sea?

I bought a lift ticket so I could get to the tops of the mountains and so most days I would go up and have a bit to eat at one of the gasthauses, most often a cappuccino and a strudel. Each place made its own strudel. Delicious. I read a recipe of how to do it yesterday. Such a fuss for the crust, yet such a delightful crust.

Light snack–

but the strudel has cream

and the coffee’s topped mitt schlag.

Gasthaus at the Top of the Lift

Watching snow melt on a copper roof.

The slant is pleasing, almost Japanese.

Even the chimneys are copper and the water

sluices down into copper gutters and out

a copper pipe jutting out at the same

pleasing angle. Wind catches the water

blowing it into spray. The sun shines on all,

gleaming from the copper roof, gleaming

from the high mountain snow, shining

through the slow-gathering clouds.

the white-shouldered mountain brothers

stand thinking long, slow thoughts

mountains stand in deep relief

like views from a stereopticon

where the firs give up

their majesty asserts itself

The sky

in the East, so blue

in the West, so fierce.

At the Hotel

The proprietor’s daughter behind the bar

tells of those coming down the high ski run

who fall, laughing, arms and skis in the air,

nylon rumps on the ice – then the slide,

and then – the slide.

Below the Pinkerbahn

I’m riding in the high air going higher.

Below, three farmers working a farm

that would slide down the hill if it could.

One drives his tractor in ever decreasing rectangles,

his machine leans away from the mountain,

his body towards it.The other two

rake new-mown hay downward,

each pull starting a green avalanche

which comes to rest at a flattish place.

Surely here a farmer must have one long leg.

On top, cows again, each belled with its own note

their coats, the shiny, slate-gray brown of Weimaraner.

They graze the high grass by the fence along the path.

A woman holds her child up to pet one cow’s sweet head.

An immense tongue comes out to lick a red cheek.

On the Terrace

At a gasthaus – high enough to bring me

eye to eye with the mountains,

a butterfly, a bee, and, in the shadows,

a wraith of melting snow.

Now two slender German women,

maybe in their 30’s drinking tall beers.

Among all this gray, green, white,

and eternal blue, their lips burn red.

I am full of fears.

Up the Ahornbahn

and at the top – I think

to go right back down.

Another part says “No!”
so I sit with strudel

and hot chocolate

breathing deeply.

Later

The first day of Fall.

The day seems calm,

yet the small leaves

of the pear tree

shimmer like

butterfly wings

BIO: Nils Peterson is Professor Emeritus at San Jose State University. He has published poetry, science fiction, a memoir entitled Talk in the Reading Room, and articles on subjects as varied as golf and Shakespeare. In 2009, he was chosen as the first Poet Laureate of Santa Clara County.

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